"Now that we have the blessing of God we may go on," said Louis, biting his fingernails so closely that the beginnings of what he had next to say were mumbled through a hand upon his mouth. As words they were smooth enough, but when I remembered the King's reply to Monseigneur upon the very altar step the threat behind the flattery could not be ignored. "I am going to trust you, Monsieur de Helville, even as I trust the worthy priest who serves me and the Church at the altar behind us. It is enough for common men that they look no farther than to-morrow or next year, but nations live by generations, and we who think for France must think in tens of years. We have prayed for peace, but through a little seven years' child in Navarre there is a menace." He paused, slipping a level hand up to shroud his eyes, and watched me keenly. But this time Monsieur de Commines' lesson had been better learned and I made no reply. My wisdom was to let the King's meaning unfold itself beyond doubt. Apparently I stood the test to his satisfaction, for he went on, suavely—
"Your outburst of the other day, Monsieur de Helville was very natural, very much to your credit, and though the shame of your most unworthy suspicion nearly cost me my life, you are pardoned. Listen now. Spain is tangled in Italy, and with all her will to trouble France she has not the power; the princes of Italy, Sforza, Visconti, Medici, Este, and a dozen other pigmies, are my friends; James of Scotland and John of Portugal are my close allies; England," and he snapped his fingers contemptuously, "England is a muzzled dog; Austria stands upon its mercenaries, and my pay is better than Maximilian's. Only little Navarre is left, and through my niece, Queen Catherine, half Navarre is already mine. Have you ever had a cinder in your eye, Monsieur de Helville? a speck almost too petty to be seen, and yet it frets, and frets, and frets? That miserable half of little Navarre is the petty speck in the eye of France, and Gaston de Foix, the seven years' son of the Count of Narbonne, is the edge that frets and frets and frets."
Again he paused, and this time I was fool enough to speak.
"I do not understand, Sire, how so young a child——"
"God's name, man, who bid you understand? I said, Listen! And will not the child grow? and is he not in collateral line for the crown? The father is past middle age and spent, but the child will become the man, and through that miserable half of Navarre there will be a way open for Spain to strike France twenty years hence. Who knows what feeble brain may govern France when that day comes? I—I—I can hardly hope—D'Argenton! my cordial; quick—quick—um—um—um—there! that is past."
He sat back in his chair, very white and breathing heavily, while from a wide-mouthed crystal he sucked loudly and with evident satisfaction, long sips of a yellowish fluid.
"Let the rest wait till to-morrow, Sire," said Commines, who bent over him.
But if Louis did not spare his servants neither did he spare himself.
"Will to-morrow be less full than to-day? Besides, I am in a fever until this question of Navarre is settled. We must have the child, Monsieur de Helville."
"How, Sire?"
"Do you hear him, d'Argenton? What kind of a tool is this you have put into my hand, with his hows and whys and buts? How? Do I care how! That is your business. There are a dozen ways, all safe, all sure. Oh, it is the curse of life to have a brain to think and yet be forced to leave the execution to—to—blundering hands. How? Steal him if you like! Next you will ask—you who are so nice and have such charitable thoughts of your King—you will ask, Why? Well, I shall tell you, Monsieur, I shall tell you. Even your scruples will admit the scheme is a worthy one. If France educates the child, France educates him for a friend, France shows him that his interests are French, not Spanish, and so we hold Navarre on both frontiers and may be at peace. The mind of a child of seven is wax, is wax; and to win a child's love is not difficult. This time I ask you, Do you understand?"
"I understand, Sire, that by fair means or—or——"
"Yes, say it, or by foul! How he chokes over it, d'Argenton. Do you truly think him fit for the work?"
"I warrant Monsieur de Helville to be brave, your Majesty, to be prompt, to be devoted, and to be no fool."
"Devoted?" Louis fastened on the word like a starved rat on a bone. "Yes, but to himself or to me? To his own interests or to mine?"
"To you, Sire, to you."
"Ay! he had better. I have his oath, and I'll have the girl; yes, and I would have him too, if he played me false, have him though I bribed every court in Europe to find him."
"Sire, Sire, you mistake your man," cried Monseigneur, his voice full of a generous indignation. "Threats——"
"But there are promises, too, d'Argenton, promises and rewards. First, let come what may, you shall face Jan Meert; that I set my word to. Were I a man of your inches, Monsieur de Helville, and of that courage for which your patron vouches, I would ask nothing better than that in my own private quarrel. Next, fulfil to the letter the instructions I shall give you and I will not only build you a new Solignac, greater than the first, but for the lands of Hellewyl you shall have double, no matter whether Burgundy, France, or The Empire holds them; to that also I set my word. Talmont, am I a niggard to those who serve me? You know I am not. You came to me with empty hands and now, if every finger were a palm, they would be overflowing. Well, Monsieur, are you satisfied? At one stroke you bring peace to a nation, vengeance to yourself, wealth to your race. Does your oath hold?"
The extraordinary winning powers of the man, the sudden sweetness of tone, the softened kindliness, the generous manner, the vibration of pleading in the voice, swept me from my feet rather than the prodigality of the promises. Nor was it a new thing that a prince should be brought up at a foreign court as a pledge of peace. The novelty was in the method of securing the prince's person, and that, weighed against the advantages, did not trouble me much.
"I'll do it, Sire, I'll do it, though there should be twenty Counts of Narbonne to say No! Nor will there be time lost on the road. Once I have the boy I shall make straight for Plessis——?
"Tse! Tse!" hissed Louis between his teeth, while he wagged a finger hastily at me. "No, no, you go too fast. Who bade you make straight for Plessis? The hand of France must not appear in this affair at all."
"But, Sire, my credentials?"
"Credentials? What? Parchments with a King's seal and countersign to certify you have the authority of France to go a-thieving? Why not ask for the oriflamme at once! By the splendour of God! d'Argenton, but the fellow thinks himself an ambassador plenipotentiary at the very least! Credentials! Authority under my hand to abduct Gaston de Foix! Do you take me for a fool, Monsieur?"
"Then, Sire," said I bluntly, "if I am caught, I hang."
"Ah!" answered Louis unctuously, and patting a saint's figure haphazard as he spoke, "All is as God wills, and surely it is as honourable to die for peace as to die in war?"
"Then, Sire, having secured the boy?"
"Having, with the blessing of God, secured the boy, Monsieur de Helville, you will then—where is the letter I bade Rochfort seal with your signet, d'Argenton? It should be amongst the papers on the table."
"With my signet?" answered Monseigneur uneasily, "I have no knowledge—the Chancellor did not convey to me—that is, I had not heard——"
"No, no; there was no need you should. Ah! here it is," and Louis, pushing aside some parchments which I do not doubt he had placed where they lay that they might conceal the folded paper he now drew towards him with the tips of his claws, lifted an oblong letter sealed broadly upon the back, and tied with silk, "Rochfort prepared it for me. Write your name across the corner, my friend, if you please. Since Monsieur desires credentials, this will serve him. So! your hand shakes, de Talmont, why is that? Now, Monsieur de Helville, attend; once, by God's grace you have secured the boy, open this and do what it bids you. That is all; d'Argenton, take him away and give him what he will need. Credentials! there are your credentials, money, money, and again money! What man of the world asks for finer credentials? Tell him the route too, as he travels it he will learn now far the arm of France can stretch whether to succour or to strike."
Pushing himself to his feet, stiffly and with evident pain, Louis turned towards the altar behind him and bowed humbly, crossing his breast repeatedly, then faced again towards me.
"The God of peace go with you, Monsieur de Helville, and at all times and in all acts remember Him you serve. Ay, ay," he went on, his voice hardening, "and remember, too, your Brigitta of the white limbs and red mouth, for, by the same God, I'll not forget her or you."
The last I saw of him was a bowed, half-crouched figure, a grey-pale face looking out from between bent shoulders, and a lean hand shaken shrewishly in the air.
I was to remember whom I served! Did he mean God or himself? For all his assumption of servile religiosity, I doubted if Louis set even the seat of the Almighty higher than the throne of France.
Monseigneur made no comment until we were in the freshness of the open air; then he drew a long breath as if a strain had been relaxed.
"It might have been worse. Come, now, that I may fill your purse; you and Martin must leave Plessis to-night."
"But, Monseigneur," I protested, "this is not at all what I desired."
"What you desired! Who comes to Plessis to do what he desires? And remember this, my friend, there is no turning back from the King's plough. But to tell you the truth, it is not what I desired for you, not exactly what I had in my mind for you, and yet I was a true prophet. All is as the King wills. Keep that truth in your head, walk at all times by its light, and your ten days in the rat-trap will not have been wasted."
I made no reply, and we turned the angle of the royal block in silence. In silence, too, we crossed the court to his lodgings; but with his hand upon the latch, Monsieur de Commines, with a gayer note in his voice, repeated my complaint.
"Not all you desired? Perhaps it is; perhaps it is even more than your imagination groped after. The petulance of ignorant youth starts like a shying horse at the first obstacle, and cries: I do not like the road. It is the method that troubles me, not the end. The end!" and the last of the cloud upon his face dissolved in merriment. "I think I would play the end of the game myself if I were five-and-twenty."
"But to be a thief, an abductor of children——"
"Does that choke you? Then why did you not say No! to the King?"
"There was a glamour about him," I began.
"Did I not tell you he had many moods? He can make any man love him—for the moment—when that is his pleasure or his profit. Besides, you over-state the case; there is only one child, and he a very little one."
"It is theft, all the same."
"Pooh! We are all thieves in court when a theft profits. A reputation, an office, a title, a province, it is all a question of degree. What? If I am His Majesty's ambassador at Cologne or Rome—with credentials, mind you!—is it not that I may steal an advantage? The greater the theft, the greater the honour—if only the theft be successful! There you have the world's diplomacy in a sentence. We lie and thieve abroad for the good of our country. Who are you, friend Gaspard, that you should be more scrupulous than I?"
"But what kind of a household shall I find at—at——?"
"Where you are going? Charming, charming; especially if, as I imagine, it is the frank abandonment of country life without etiquette or punctilio."
His harangue upon the honourable methods of court life was, of course, half jest, but there was also so much of truth in his irony that complacency and self-respect once more lifted their head, swaggering as if there was no such thing as a lie in the world. After all, what was my task but to do in units what for years Monsieur de Commines had schemed to do by thousands, in the transferring of whole principalities from one ruler to another?
As I pushed open the door of Monseigneur's private apartment and stood aside to allow him to precede me, Martin, standing within, caught sight of me. What a cry he gave! "Monsieur Gaspard! Oh, thank God! thank God!" It warmed my heart to hear him. Without ceremony he pushed past Monsieur de Commines and caught me by both hands; nor would Monseigneur listen to my apologies.
"Love is no respecter of persons," said he, clapping him on the shoulder. "I told you Master Martin had a heart in his breast, and so would make a bad courtier. All the same, I wish I had fifty such insolents about me. I would be safer than Louis in Plessis for all its walls and moats. That you will have Martin with you on your journey makes me easier in my mind."
Dropping my hands, Martin bowed humbly, angry with himself that his unceremonious impetuosity had, perhaps, lowered the dignity of his Monsieur Gaspard.
"Your pardon, Monseigneur, and yours, Monsieur Gaspard; I forgot myself. But when one has gone hungry for ten days——"
"That's a fine phrase of yours, my friend; say no more lest you spoil it."
"Then, Monseigneur, if I am permitted? You spoke of a journey—is it soon?"
"To-night."
"But not to Tours, Monseigneur, not to the Street——?"
"The Street of the House of the Great Nails! No, my friend, to the south."
"To the south to-night! God be praised for all His mercies! I'll go for the horses, Monsieur Gaspard."
"Yes," said de Commines, laughing at his haste, but a little bitterly, "go, go, for there is no time to be lost. It's a strange world, de Helville," he went on as the door closed. "Here we have the greatest names in the land, and every ambitious schemer in France intriguing to set foot in Plessis, and this honest heart thanking God unfeignedly that he rides away into the darkness,—he does not even ask where! But now to arrange for your journey. For the King's peace and your own, leave Plessis to-night, late as it is. You will just have time before the gates close, when none can pass. Halt at Ouzay for the night—it is the first of the King's posts, and put up at the sign of the Laughing Man. Say to the host as you enter, 'Is the good-man of Tours in the neighbourhood?' and having received his answer, say no more. Sup on the best and sleep softly, there will be no reckoning to pay. But in the morning a man, wearing a bunch of trefoil in his hat, will give you your next instructions. Follow these, but ask no questions. As you find it at Ouzay, so will it be straight through to Navarre. Everywhere you rest you will be expected, or, rather, not you, but the King's messenger, and everywhere you pass shot free."
"Then what is this for?" asked I, for while he was speaking he had filled a wallet with more gold coin than Solignac had ever seen in all my five-and-twenty years.
"For diplomacy," he answered laughing. "Where you cannot steal you must bribe. But there, I hear the horses in the courtyard, and since needs must when the King bids, the sooner you go south the sooner Solignac will give you a roof to your head. And who knows but the journey may find you a mistress for it! Brigitta? H'm, perhaps Brigitta, though I am no lover of swineherd wenches. Let me see the King's letter a moment."
I took it from the inner pocket where, half mechanically, I had placed it for safety, and handed it to Monsieur de Commines—an oblong envelope of crisp paper, a palm and a half in length by a palm wide, stout, substantial, close-fastened. He took it, and turned at once to the seal.
"My cypher and quarterings exactly, even to the flaw on the upper right hand corner of the collet; my shade of wax too, even to the perfume I commonly use. Men call me avaricious. It's a lie, de Helville; money is a good servant but the worst of masters. Yet I would give five hundred, yes a thousand livres to know what is written within, or even to see the writing. Who knows but it may seem my very own? If I do nothing by halves, neither does the King my master, though how he procured the signet I cannot imagine." With a sigh and a shake of the head he raised his eyes from the seal. "No; truly things have not turned out as I desired."
In the courtyard he bade Martin follow with Roland and the pack-horse, and walked with me to the outer gate, his arm linked in mine. Neither spoke, for he was wrapped in deep thought, his face as dismal as if we followed a funeral. But as we passed along the outer fosse I saw his eyes lighten.
"Credentials! sneered the King," and he tapped the paper with his finger. "Perhaps he was more right than he supposed! That letter, without superscription though it is, may open a smooth way for you of which His Majesty never dreamed; though God forbid that I should judge how clear and deep are His Majesty's dreams. Keep it, friend Gaspard, and if you find a difficulty in making good your footing at—at—the end of your journey, Philip de Commines' forged signet, with his name across the corner of he knows not what, may clear away the opposition as no King's credentials would do."
By this time we were beyond the final drawbridge, with Martin, who had passed ahead, waiting for us, the bridles across his arm, and Roland's stirrup in his palm. Royal palace and all, Monsieur Gaspard must receive the humble service due to him, and so impress the loafers at the gate with his exalted rank!
"How can I thank you, Monseigneur!" I began. "Here was I, forlorn, helpless, a beggar, with neither hope nor prospect, not even a second suit to my back, and now, through you, I am an envoy on the King's service."
"For God's sake," he cried, "say nothing of the prospect till it is proved. Only remember this: first for your father's sake, and now for the sake of your father's son, Philip de Commines is your friend without reserve. That is a thing I say to few. If you tumble into a pitfall on this path of my choosing—what a fool I was to meddle with the King's affairs!—I'll pull you out, cost what it may; and oh, lad! lad! there's a huge cost to be paid by someone, of that I'm certain. And now, good-bye, and God keep you. Take care of him, Martin."
"To the death, Monseigneur; trust me. For what else was I born?"
"Farewell, Monseigneur, and again my thanks. How long do you give me to return?"
With a groan and an upward gesture of both hands, de Commines turned back towards the gate, now about to be shut.
"How can I tell? A month! Eternity! What I said at the first I say at the last—All is as the King wills"; and with that, which was at best a boding God-speed, we rode on our way.
So long as Plessis gates remained in sight Martin kept his distance, nor, though I reined Roland back to a walk, would he decrease the space between us by a yard. But once a turn of the path, following the river's curve, hid the towers, he drew up beside me.
"Oh, Monsieur Gaspard, Monsieur Gaspard, but this is good!"
"What is good?" answered I, holding out a hand to him, which he caught and gripped. I knew his meaning very well, but I knew, too, that it would please him to speak his thought.
"That we two should be out in the sweet air together, free from the rat-trap, free from the fox with the wolf's claws, free from—from—that accursed house in the Rue Trois Pucelles, and riding—God knows where! What does it matter!"
"Why, what was that house to you?" I asked, remembering a hint Monseigneur had let fall.
"It was very near being my last rise in the world, and having seen two poor souls travel by that upward road I had no heart to follow them. One was a common thief, a foul-mouthed gutter bully, and I daresay deserved his hanging. But the other was a miserable, white-faced wench who stole a loaf out of sheer hunger, and that she might keep her wretched soul one day longer in its starved body. They hung them together—for company, I suppose; and it made me sick to see a coarse, burly scoundrel climb out of that upper window and slide down the rope to the girl's shoulders and crouch there, tailor-fashion, laughing at some vile jest of his own making, while she—quite right, Monsieur Gaspard, I'll say no more about it. It's a filthy way by which to send even a sinner to God."
The picture Martin conjured up was a horrible one, and remembering Mademoiselle's grim suggestion as to what her fate would be if found in Tours, I had made an involuntary gesture of loathing. If it had sickened Martin to see an outcast of the streets—a nameless wretch haled from God knows what cellar of vice—suffer such foul indignity, how would the spirit not revolt to think of that pure, sweet face——
But even as I clenched my teeth and cursed at large, a new thought broadened upon me. What a spirit she must have had, what a courage, what a boldness, what an abnegation of self, to deliberately, and with open eyes, face so horrible an end in cold blood! It is curious how the little side winds of life fan the flame of love. Martin's chance words, and the shocking scene they forced upon the imagination, had turned my thoughts afresh in Mademoiselle's direction, warming my admiration to glowing point. But of that he knew nothing.
"And you?" I asked. "How did Tristan's brutal work touch you?"
"It was this way, Monsieur Gaspard. What had I to do with myself all alone in Tours? Nothing! So each day, yes, and twice a day, to keep Ninus in condition, I rode out as far as Plessis and walked him up and down where I could see the gates. You were inside, and they were always something to look at. For a time nothing happened. Then a fellow followed me out—a huge, pock-marked rascal on a raw-boned sorrel. Not a word did he speak, but as I sentried up and down he drew aside and sat watching me. Then he followed me back to the Cross of Saint Martin, and later on I saw him earwigging the landlord. What he learned I don't know. Possibly that robber of guests thought it his interest to remember what he told Monseigneur he had never heard, for next day and the next I was again followed. Then three more joined him, and before I caught their intention they had me on my back. 'I denounce him for a spy,' cried pock-pit. 'Lord! Lord! what a neck he has! He's so light it will take my weight to stretch it as I did the girl's last week. Three minutes on her shoulders, and—click! all was over!' But Monsieur de Commines met us on the road to Tours, and—and—here we are riding together in the cool of God's free air, riding to—— Where do we ride, Monsieur Gaspard?"
Stretching out my hand again, I caught his, squeezing it hard.
"I owe Monseigneur a good turn for that, and perhaps you and I may be able to pay him shortly." My idea was that the prompt success of de Commines'protégéwould redound to de Commines' credit with the King, which was another reason against a too delicate squeamishness as to methods. "To-night we ride to Ouzay."
"And then?"
"God knows! Wherever a Jack-in-a-box of a fellow bids us."
"But surely, Monsieur Gaspard, you know the end of it all?"
"Navarre, I think."
"That's beyond my tether," said Martin, shaking his head doubtfully. "But there, the good God didn't open the rat-trap for us for nothing, that I'm sure."
The name of the inn at Ozauy must have been given in bitter irony, for house and host were alike unprepossessing. Custom seemed the last thing desired.
"Full," said he, opening the door an inch or two in reply to my third knock, though the blankness of the dark upper windows gave him the lie. "Go elsewhere, my fine fellow, and make less noise." And would have shut-to the door again, had I not thrust the end of my riding-whip through the crack.
"Tell me," I whispered, as he struggled to push it back, "is the good-man of Tours in the neighbourhood?"
On the instant the struggling ceased, and I heard a little whimper behind the door like the cry of a child too frightened of the dark to scream.
"Saints have mercy on a fool!" he said, flinging the door wide. "Come in, Monseigneur, come in! How was I to guess it was your Excellency at so late an hour? There are half a dozen louts drinking in the kitchen, some of them not too sober—we must live as we may these times. Shall I turn them out?"
"No, but prepare supper while we see to the horses, then make our rooms ready. But the good-man of Tours, what of him?"
"Certainly, your Excellency, in the morning; I shall see to that. To-night he is——"
But I remembered Commines' advice, and cut him short; besides, it was long past our usual hour for the meal, and we were half-starved.
"Is that your business? Bring supper."
"Again, certainly, Monseigneur, and a good one, though all Ouzay be scoured for it." Nor, when it came, had we any cause to complain.
What profession, beyond that of spy and jackal to the sick Lion of Plessis, the good-man of Tours followed I do not know, but at least he was diligent in his master's service. Before seven in the morning there was a knocking at our door, and when Martin slipped the bolt a fellow in peasant's dress entered, closing the door carefully behind him.
"Monsieur de Helville?" he said, looking from one to the other, but speaking not at all in a peasant's voice.
"I am de Helville."
"And I the good-man of Tours—or his shadow. Here are your orders. Go to the Red Cock in Poictiers, and ask the landlord the same question you asked last night, saying neither more nor less."
He had kept his hand on the latch while he spoke, and as he ended he opened the door and was gone before we could put in a word. Martin was for running after him, but I forbade it.
"To what purpose? We know as much as the King wants us to know. That masquerading peasant could tell us nothing more. It's my belief that, except Louis himself, not a man in France, not even either Monsieur de Commines or the Chancellor, knows the route we are to follow or the business we travel on."
"But, Monsieur Gaspard, why such caution?"
"For this reason, my friend; if we bungle our commission, the King can say, 'I never knew you,' and so leave us to our fate as wandering vagabonds."
As it was at Ouzay, so it was at Poictiers and for the rest of our journey. Poictiers sent us to Ruffec, Ruffec to Marthon, Marthon to Saint Gatien, Saint Gatien to Le Catelet, Le Catelet to Gabarnet, Gabarnet to Orthez, Orthez to La Voulle. Everywhere there was the same question, everywhere the same obsequious, frightened deference, with none seeing further into the King's purpose than the next post. Once our instructions came by way of a woman, and once through the inn-keeper himself.
This last was at The Good Queen in La Voulle, and there, for the first time, our orders varied.
"I am to tell you this," said he. "What you seek is at Morsigny. When you have found it, ride back here with all speed, and then, but not till then, open the sealed letter."
At the time I answered nothing, but next morning as we sat at breakfast, our host serving us, I asked, as if for gossip's sake, if he knew of such a place as Morsigny?
"The château, I suppose you mean, Monsieur?" he replied, playing up to my lead while he busied himself doing nothing with apparent zeal. "It is about three leagues to the south, and so not far from the hills. But you will not find the Count at home."
"Oh, the Count is not at home," I repeated vaguely, my information being of the weakest. I had not even remembered there was a Count.
"No, Excellency; he is with the court at Pamplona, though not altogether for love."
"Who, then, is at Morsigny?"
"Only the little Count and a small household. The life they live is of the quietest; few pass their way, and if you have news from Paris, or even from Bordeaux, Monsieur, you will be sure of a welcome."
"What?" said I doubtfully. The possible solution of an evident difficulty did not seem a good one. "A stranger? Hardly welcome, I think."
"That's just it, Monsieur, because you are a stranger, or no more than two. Were you fifty you would find the door shut so fast that fifty would not open it. Nor would you get a welcome if you came from Tours. We of the Little Kingdom do not love Louis. Jean Volran says it."
"Bold words," said Martin grimly. "But, my friend, here's advice to you: if you meet a certain Messire Tristan, keep your dislikes to yourself, for assuredly Jean Volran would never say it a second time."
"Bah!" replied he, shrugging his shoulders as he turned away. "I'm not afraid of your precious Messire Tristan."
No more passed, but as we rode on the way I had leisure to admire the skill with which His Majesty chose even the humblest of his tools. In three sentences Jean Volran had informed us of the position at Morsigny, had shown us a possible cause of welcome, and hinted a warning we would be fools to disregard.
It was curious, but it was not the seizing of the child that troubled my conscience, but the stealing through a friendly door under cover of a lie. But as I cast about how I might shift a downright lie to a seeming truth, and so cheat the devil in the dark, Martin could stand his uncertainty no longer, and so, for the tenth time since we had left Plessis, spurred Ninus up alongside of Roland that he might ease his curiosity.
"Are we at our journey's end, Monsieur Gaspard?"
"Nearly," answered I, finding safety in brevity.
"And what do we do next?"
"The King's business."
"Then it's turn about," said he, "for the King nearly did mine in Tours. But what is the King's business to us?"
"The restoration of the Hellewyl lands, the building of Solignac, and Jan Meert's life. Will that content you?"
But to my surprise, so far from showing the lively satisfaction I looked for, or even astonishment, his face grew grave.
"Is it as dangerous as all that? The old fox of Plessis never gives coin or life except at ten-fold usury. Who pays it, Monsieur Gaspard?"
"Are you a coward? Think of the gain, man."
"Ay! Coward! Think of the cost!" he answered dourly. "I say again, Who pays it? Pray God we don't!"
"That we may not," I answered, speaking more sharply than was just, for I had always encouraged Martin to be frank. "See well to Roland and Ninus, for when we ride from Morsigny we shall ride as if the devil or Tristan himself were after us. The pack-horse we shall leave behind."
"Morsigny!" said Martin. "I'd rather have Solignac, charred and roofless, than twenty Morsignys. God send us safe away!"
"God send us safe there," I retorted; "and that He may, do thou wait here till I ask our road. I hear voices across the break of whins yonder."
It is my belief that the sun, the rain, and the wind are at the bottom of half the workings of a man's spirit, nor, if nature be in a mothering mood, is it possible for wholesome five-and-twenty to withstand for long her comfortings. Never had Flanders shown me so blue a sky, rarely had such a kindly sun so warmed me. The very vigour of the trees, their depth of green, their splendid strength, their lavishment of southern foliage, was a beguiling and a delight. Long before I turned Roland out of the track my sourness had vanished, and in its place was the glorious exuberance and sweetness of youth, that thinks neither care nor evil. Care? To the back of to-morrow with care! All around me the world was sown with gold, the yellow of broom, the yellow of whin, the yellow of kingcups; and as the honey-sweet of the warm air smote my nostrils, my heart danced in time to the thud of Roland's hoofs. Over this bush we leaped, over that, zigzagging towards the sound of life.
"Ah dieu! me donc le joye d'amour!"
sang I, and landed Roland almost flat on the top of a fluttering skirt. With a jerk I pulled him to his haunches, and, bonnet in hand, sprang to the ground.
"Pardon, Madame," I began, but stopped short, my heart leaping again, but this time to the tune of my song. It was no Madame at all, but Mademoiselle herself—Mademoiselle of the Star of Flanders and Tours Cathedral, and straddling in front of her was a little six or seven-year lad, his fists squared up at me.
It is another of my beliefs that, in the disadvantage of surprise, a woman's wits work more keenly than a man's. Certainly Mademoiselle found her tongue first, though that, perhaps, was yet more truly feminine.
"Welcome to Navarre, Monsieur Gaspard Hellewyl!" said she, sweeping me a curtsey so low that the exertion fired her cheeks ruddily. "Or is it Monsieur Martin? The changes are so confusing and the names so hard to remember."
"Gaspard Hellewyl, Mademoiselle," answered I; "Gaspard Hellewyl, and always at your service."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, curtseying a second time, "always at my service! That is very prettily said, Monsieur. And have you come all the way from Tours to kill a man to prove it? That was your way in Paris, and that was what you would have done in Tours, but here in Navarre I pray you prove it in some gentler fashion. We have so few men in Navarre, and"—the laughter died from her eyes as she paused an instant—"we may need them all to fight France."
"If all Navarre can double its fists as sturdily as your playfellow, Mademoiselle," answered I, giving her badinage for badinage, "then France had better call Spain to her help, or else cry quarter."
As we spoke she had folded her arms round the little lad in loving protection, but now she loosed him, and we stood for a moment in silence. Presently she shook her head, her mouth twitching, as if her gaiety was struggling back again.
"My playfellow! Ah, no, Monsieur Hellewyl, and I humbly pray you will pardon the freedom of my presumption in addressing you. I am Monsieur le Comte'sgouvernanteand nurse, but, to be frank, very much his nurse and very little his gouvernante, for I fear I teach him nothing but to love me. This, Monsieur, is Count Gaston de Foix, only son and heir to Monseigneur the Count de Narbonne. Monsieur Gaston, have I permission to present to you Monsieur Hellewyl?"
The child nodded gravely, acknowledging my bow with a quaint seriousness that moved my pity. It seemed a sorrowful thing that at six years old the ceremonies of court usage should already have been so deeply ingrained; but in an age when babes were betrothed in their very cradles, the prince knew even less of the joys of life than the peasant. Gaston de Foix! The lad to secure whom I was to turn child-stealer! Gaston! The troubler of France, and the bearer of peace to two nations if I could but succeed in my mission. Already I was drawn towards him, already I pitied him, for if court ways so cramped his life here in the freedom of the fields of Navarre, what would it be behind the walls of Plessis, or wherever the King might elect to quarter him?
"If Monsieur Hellewyl is your friend, Suzanne, then I am glad to see him," replied he, with all the sedateness of a councillor of state.
Suzanne! So that was her name! Somehow it pleased me that I should hear it for the first time from the lips of a child, and have my own conjoined with it as a friend. And yet, such is the discontent of mankind, I would have been yet better pleased if the child had put it that Mademoiselle Suzanne was friend to Gaspard Hellewyl.
With a gravity the equal of his own I returned the queer stiff little bow he gave me.
"Her friend always, that I can promise you, Monsieur le Comte, if she will but permit me the honour. And she has greater friends than I; Monseigneur the Prince de Talmont——"
With a sweep of her arm that should have been a revelation to me but was not, so intent was I watching her eyes, Mademoiselle unceremoniously put the boy aside.
"Commines!" she cried sharply, her face suddenly losing the freshness of its youth. "Monsieur de Commines has sent you! God's name, Monsieur Hellewyl, why did you not say so at once?"
"Because, Mademoiselle Suzanne, it is not quite as you put it."
"Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, leave your precise niceness of orders aside, and come to the broad truth. It was Monsieur de Commines who told you where to find me, however cunningly he may have packed his meaning in doubtful words. I know his shifty ways. I mean him no offence. More than once he has shown himself my friend; but he is one of those who love to skirt the shadow of a hedge rather than cross a field in God's sunlight. He has ten several ways of saying Good-morning! and each has a different significance. Your message, Monsieur? Is it peace? What a fool I was to think—but no matter what I thought; is it peace? is it peace?"
For the second time I had unwittingly misled her. But though on this occasion the fault was certainly not mine, I was embarrassed how to answer. It was not simply that to tell how, in blunt truth, I had stumbled on her by accident would have cost me the playful mischievous interest I had first awakened, but it must also have provoked enquiry. The woman who had cried of Villon, Is there no one to kill this infamous wretch? who had had the cool hardihood to ride under the very shadow of Tristan's gallows-house, because the greater safety lay in the greater danger, would promptly ask, If Gaspard Hellewyl does not come from Philip de Commines, what, then, is he doing in Navarre at all in these times of stress? It was the little Count who gave me sufficient breathing time to avoid the crime of a blundering lie. Naturally, he could not follow Mademoiselle's change of mood, and her pleading cry as she stood with outstretched arms seemed to him the cry of fear.
"What is it, Suzanne?" said he, running between us. "What has he done to you? If he hurts you, I'll kill him when I grow big—I will, I will! Go away, Monsieur Hellewyl, you are not a friend."
"No, my heart, no," answered she, again putting him aside, but gropingly, for her eyes were fixed on mine. "Monsieur Hellewyl, is truly our friend, or I hope he is, and am waiting to hear him prove it."
"Heart, head, and hand," replied I, not venturing to touch the white fingers, near though they were to mine. The brief interval had given my slow wit time to move, and I thought I saw my way clear. "As to Monsieur de Commines, his position is even more difficult than you credit. At times the path by the hedge is quicker than the straight road in the open sun. But this will prove that at least I am here with his full knowledge." Out of its inner pocket, and with a blessing on him for his crooked ways, I whipped the King's letter, turning first the false seal, and then the extorted endorsement towards her. "Do you recognise them?"
"I recognise them," she replied curtly, advancing her hand yet nearer. "Give it me, Monsieur; pray God you bring good news."
"From my heart I believe I bring peace, and yet I cannot give you the letter—cannot give it to-day," I added after a pause. "You see it has no address, and—oh! wait Mademoiselle, wait! Trust me, the best fruit ripens slowly."
"Wait!" she repeated, her arm sinking to her side; "that is always what men say to a woman! Wait! wait! as if to wait were not hardest of all; to wait, not knowing whether to hope or fear, or whether the new day brings a blessing or a curse. Wait! Ah, Monsieur, you cannot love your Flanders as we of the Little Kingdom love Navarre, or you would not say Wait! so easily."
Once more the little Count stood my friend.
"Come and play, Suzanne," he said impatiently. "Monsieur can find his way to Morsigny by himself."
"To Morsigny!" she cried, stooping to catch him in her arms so that I failed to see her face. "Yes, that is best. Why, what a clever boy you are, Gaston! Monsieur Hellewyl, the Count de Foix invites you to Morsigny. But oh! I fear that you will find it dull, for at Morsigny there are no men to be killed."
Now it will be understood why, for the sake of those who are to come after me, it is necessary to write this vindication. Men, not knowing the whole truth, have called me coward and traitor, because, said they, having a felon purpose in my mind, I crept into Morsigny behind a trusting woman's skirts.
That is not my view, and three times I have fought to maintain my opinion. You who have read so far, judge would I wilfully hurt Mademoiselle by so much as a finger prick? Judge, too, if Gaspard Hellewyl was the man to root his fortunes in his own dishonour? Nowhere have I laid claim to be more than a simple-hearted gentleman, and the King's scheme, as laid before me, seems to me now, as it seemed to me then, a not unreasonable solution of a grave, threatening political difficulty. That the wrench of the forced separation must give Mademoiselle pain I knew and lamented, but I judged her to be of too noble a mind to weigh selfishly the present brief sorrow, however sharp, against the peace, safety, and prosperity of a whole generation. At the court of France Gaston de Foix would certainly receive as honourable a care as in the wilds of Navarre, together with a more splendid education, and so be the better fitted to carry the responsibility of his station. True, that education would give his mind a particular bias, but what of that? We all more or less reflect that which lies nearest, and to a child that is neither a difficulty nor a hardship. Therefore from every point of view—from that of France, from that of Navarre, from that of Mademoiselle, even from that of the boy himself, I held, and hold to this day, that my action was justified. But slander holds otherwise, and it is easier to kill a plain-speaking and perhaps honest gentleman or two than choke a lie. But if at that time what men might say did not trouble me, Morsigny had its own perplexities.
By nature the South not simply suspects, but hates the North, and so the men of Morsigny gave us no welcome. Nor do I blame them. In race, language, and sympathies we were at variance, and Pamplona—the true Pamplona, not that which reflected Queen Catherine's Gallic sympathies—distrusted Paris even as the fox distrusts the wolf, or the pigeon the kite. At Morsigny there was courtesy, but it was the courtesy of silence and suspicion, so that in his twelve hours of the Louvre, Martin had learned more of the gossip of the kitchen than he did in as many days of Morsigny.
For one thing, we could not understand their tongue, nor they ours. Our northern guttural was to them a barbarism fit for fleering laughter, while their blend of Spanish, bastard French, and Basque sounded to us an unmeaning lisping prattle, pretty enough in a child's mouth, but a thing of derision for grown men.
Partly this isolation pleased me, for it threw me much with Mademoiselle Suzanne and the young Count, but only to find myself again fumbling with a doubt. The puzzle was Mademoiselle herself. In Paris she had stood for Narbonne and Navarre, pleading in the nation's stead as the very equal of Philip de Commines, while here, amongst her own folk, she was no more than body-servant to a child of six, his nurse, his playfellow, and at his wilful beck every hour of the day and night. It was true that Morsigny treated her with all respect, but her humility to the child Gaston was greater than the humility of Morsigny to Mademoiselle Suzanne D'Orfeuil.
To solve a puzzle the best course is to examine it closely and with persistent diligence. That is one obvious statement. Here is another: it is a pleasant thing when duty and desire run in pairs. So it was now with me, or so I persuaded myself. To solve the puzzle was my desire, to secure the person of the little Count was my duty, and the way to achieve both was to keep a close attendance on Mademoiselle—or so, and with great ease, again I persuaded myself.
Day by day, then, that I might the better fulfil my mission, we rode, we hawked, we hunted, we strolled, Count Gaston always one of three, and, what was much less satisfactory, a full-armed guard always where I did not desire them to be.
If we cooled ourselves in the woods, Anton and Pierre were prowling somewhere in the coverts; if we sunned ourselves in the garden, and played at the humanising passion of flower-culture, 'Tuco or Hugues glowered at me from unexpected corners. Was Mademoiselle doubtful of my loyalty? At the time I did not think so, but Navarre was unsleeping in its suspicions of France, and to Morsigny we stood for all that was hated in King Louis. It rather seemed to me as if their watchfulness drove us closer together, as if she would make up to the stranger for their surly want of confidence. For day by day she grew more frank, though never forgetting what was due from the nurse of Count Gaston to the friend of Philip de Commines.
That galled me, galled to shame everything that was best in me; for I knew well, however half-menial her place and service might be, that in pure devotion of spirit and singleness of heart she was as much above me as any saint in glory. Nor do I altogether mean a saint. Saints are too aloof from the mire of our world to give a true comparison; she was as much above as every true-souled, pure-thoughted, loving woman is above the man who splashes on along the bye-ways of life, not too careful where he sets his foot so that he be but one stride nearer to his goal. By that I think you will see that I was beginning to love Mademoiselle a little; and so, if you have some grasp of the complexities of the human mind, you can understand the half-conscious conflict that was in struggle between grieving the angel of my adoration and the shame lest, by omitting to cause that grief, certain white limbs should crack on the rack and certain lips I had kissed scream curses on the treachery of Gaspard Hellewyl. However soon a man may find other and sweeter lips to kiss, he can never, unless the beast of the field be the nobler brute, quite forget the touch of the mouth that has helped him to the dearer knowledge.
You see, then, the various cleft sticks that pinched me? And, if you are one of those having that grasp of which I have written, you will understand that Morsigny's cup of satisfaction was heavily drenched with bitters.
In the end I again persuaded myself to satisfy my inclination; that is, to save the lips I had ceased to love by so prolonging my stay at Morsigny that when the time came to ride north at a gallop Mademoiselle would say in her heart: I can trust and not be afraid. So would the lips I had learned to love not grow white for the loss of the child who lay so near her heart of hearts.
So, as I have said, day by day our intimacy grew franker, until, as we rode amongst the whins, I thought the hour had struck to loosen the knot of at least one perplexity. Little Gaston was on his pony, coursing in and out of the brakes like a rabbit at play, and we two pacing soberly alone. She had asked her daily question: Must I still wait, or has the time at last come to open Monsieur de Commines letter? and I had replied as usual: No, not yet, Mademoiselle; trust me, I beg—still trust me.
"Oh, Monsieur!" she answered, not petulantly, but as if out of a very sore and weary heart, "why must the faith be always on one side? Is there to be no trust in me?"
"No trust?" I echoed. "Why, all Navarre has trusted you, and to me it is a strange thing that a girl who is too humble to mount her horse at the Château gate should yet be chosen to speak for Navarre in Paris." For a moment she looked aside in silence, then drily, as if I presumed upon her, she replied: "In my station I am what God made me, Monsieur."
"For which God be thanked, Mademoiselle!" I answered, in a voice as sober as her own. "My mother taught me that what He does is well done, but none the less it was strange, and a very great trust. Is Navarre so poor that it must choose a frail girl and a—a—how am I to put it without offence?—must choose you, in a word, you who—who——"
"Am what I am! Do not be afraid to speak your mind, Monsieur. Honest service is no woman's shame. But I will answer your question with another: Is Hellewyl so great a name in France, or even in Flanders, that Louis—you come from Plessis, you know, and whoever comes from Plessis comes from the King—that Louis should choose Gaspard Hellewyl of all men to carry his message of peace to Navarre? Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur! because I speak plainly you are angry. Who is this child's nurse to scoff at a Hellewyl of Solignac! Can you give a thrust and not take one? A thrust? No, a whin scratch!"
"But a scratch that hurts, Mademoiselle."
"Yes, Monsieur, and hurts more than you; not even Gaston's nurse is pleased to be told she is insignificant. Have you the only thin skin in the world? But I forgive you, Monsieur. It is right that a man should have pride of race, and if it will heal your wound I will avow that you are the greatest name in Flanders, as"—she added softly—"you have shown yourself more than once to be the truest gentleman. But I will be even kinder; I will answer you your half-asked question: my insignificance was my safety. If Monsieur de Narbonne, Monsieur de Gourdon, Monsieur D'Arros, or any one of fifty who make the poverty of Navarre rich, had suddenly disappeared, your King's spies—do you know that he has spies, even in La Voulle? Would to God we could hang them!—would have traced him within a day, and all France have hummed like a tapped hive. But who would miss such an insignificance as Suzanne D'Orfeuil? Who would fear a couple of women travelling with a single servant? And yet, Monsieur Hellewyl, your Louis may find that a woman is not always altogether a fool. Oh, you men, you men! with your smug, complacent pride in your own proper wit, and your wisdom, and your courage! I tell you, Monsieur, a woman's heart is as big as yours, her soul as great, and the courage that dares fight for its life is not the greatest courage in the world! Oh,Dieu-Merci! Monsieur, I forget myself; but you see I love Navarre and Morsigny as dearly as you love Flanders and Solignac; and when a woman loves, she forgets everything, even herself, and remembers only that she loves."
"But she also forgives, Mademoiselle?"
"When a woman loves! You miss the context, Monsieur Hellewyl," she answered tartly.
"And am I not forgiven?"
"Oh, la, Monsieur! would you have me get down and curtsey? Who am I to forgive the friend of the Prince de Talmont and envoy of Louis of France! Surely you forget yourself, as you did a minute back, only now it is your dignity, while then it was—what it was! What would your King say to such an abasement in his representative?"
"No King of mine, Mademoiselle, as I have told you once before."
"He is our King whom we serve as King, Monsieur and I would to God it were any one on earth but Louis the Cunning; whosoever touches him touches shame," and with a vicious little cut of her riding switch she rode on.
That was ever the way with her—deep-hearted, shallow-hearted, bitter-tongued, and womanly sweet, gentle, wrathful, mischievous all by turns—till, for all our daily rides and nearness, I felt that she kept me as much at arm's-length as did any surly, suspicious, ill-conditioned Navarrois dog of them all. But a day came, though not till weeks had passed, when the little Count himself broke down the barrier.
From the first we two had drawn together. For myself, I have always loved children; their faults are mostly ours, their sweetness God's and their own. Their faith has no reserve, their love no limitation; and when Divine wisdom sought a standard by which men might measure themselves, He set a little child in their midst.
But apart from my general love for children, it was necessary, for the success of the King's scheme, that I should win the boy's confidence. Not simply that success or failure might hinge upon his willingness to travel with me, but that Mademoiselle, seeing how my heart had opened to the lad, would suffer less. So, playing to win him, I won him out and out, and soon Monsieur Gaspard rivalled even his beloved Suzanne as a playfellow.
But it was no play that broke down Mademoiselle's reserve.
As Jean Volran had said, Morsigny lay not far from the hills. First there was the green and gold of gorse and grass, then slopes of pinewood through which streams bickered and flashed in the sun, or angled through the groom like snow-wreaths blown by the wind. Beyond these were ruder hills, rock-strewn and sheer of face as they lifted shoulder by shoulder to the peaks in the blue distance. We have no such scene in Flanders, and for the novelty of its beauty I grew to love it almost as dearly as did Mademoiselle for old friendship's sake, or the boy Gaston, because there the healthy animal in him found full scope for play.
Did I say that in this companionship of ours little Gaston made one of three? That is a mistake. Except when within the precincts of the Château garden he made one of four. That I have hitherto forgotten Brother Paulus has but one reasonable excuse. Mademoiselle had pushed him from my thoughts. And is it a reasonable excuse? Brother Paulus would be the first to admit it—Brother Paulus of the grey withered face and shining eyes, the man's deep heart, the woman's tenderness, the child's direct simplicity and ignorance of the world. What wrongs, what sorrows, his youth had suffered, God and his own spirit alone knew. With him, as with the grapes of his own Provence, the crushing had but set free sweetness and strength, mellowed by age to a cordial whereby the weak grew strong, and they who fainted by the way took heart of grace to pack afresh their burdens on their backs and go cheerily forward.
So, at least, Mademoiselle Suzanne has said. I only know that a man's brave heart beat under the monk's black frock, and that in a time of trial Gaspard Hellewyl's perplexity of soul found frail Brother Paulus an unshaken rock of strength.
There were four of us, then, who rode through the whin brakes, under the pines and out upon the rocks beyond. Indeed, there were six, for Hugues and the big Spanish fellow they called 'Tuco followed us, but that we did not know at the time.
Brother Paulus led the way with Gaston; Mademoiselle followed, and I, because the path was in places too narrow for two abreast, brought up the rear. Of us all, I think Brother Paul was the merriest; though, such is the alchemy of the hills, in us all the cares of life were transmuted into gaiety. Brother Paul forgot the weariness of age, Gaston the penalty of being born great, I that I was sworn to add to his penalties for his own good, Mademoiselle, the sorrows and dangers of Navarre. She went further, she even forgot that she was nothing more than Suzanne D'Orfeuil, nurse andgouvernanteto the Count de Foix, forgot everything but that the skies were blue, the sun warm, the air thin and sweet. Care was behind us at Morsigny, and for that day the troubled woman entered afresh into her too early lost heritage of girlhood.
Woman! Man! We were neither one nor other. The horses had been left behind in charge of a goat-herd under the shadow of the last pines, and we were four children scrambling up the rocks with Gaston the oldest, because the most gravely serious, of the four. In a child, the joy and wonder of living are at times too great to find expression in laughter.
Up and up and up we climbed, a riot of life in our veins—up and up and up, not so fast as to lose breath for merry-making, nor so slow as to grow cold at the game—up and up and up, now by a goat-track, now by a dead watercourse, now by a tumbled scree of stones, the young Count as active as a kid, and Brother Paul, his black frock kilted to his knees, always near him in front. Up and up and up, and then from behind a jutted rock there came a cry, one only, but so fierce, so harsh, so edged with agony and despair, that Mademoiselle turning, caught my sleeve, gasping, "Jesu! What is that?" and we stood listening, but there was a great silence.
"Paul's voice," said I at last.
"Paul's voice," she answered; "yes, Paul's voice, but—God in heaven! what of Gaston?"
Loosening her hold she hastened on, I at her side, but below her lest she should fall, for her limbs were shaking. The nerves that were not afraid of Tristan for herself trembled at she knew not what for her charge.
"Paul has fallen," said I, steadying her with my hand.
"Then Gaston would have come back or cried to us. No, no; it is my boy, it is my boy."
The wail in her voice cut me to the heart. That she loved the lad I knew, but that she loved him with the yearning tenderness of a woman was new to me. Hitherto I had thought it was Navarre she loved in the person of the little Count, loved him because, as Louis had made clear, he stood for the peace and hope of her nation. That was greatness in her—a greatness, a loftiness of mind, a patriotism that led her to such heights of sacrifice as moved my admiration and worship. This was less great, but at once more human and more divine. For the common food of life we do not ask that our women shall be patriots, it is enough that their love flows out full and sweet and strong to husband, child, and kindred, and as this love of Suzanne's burst its bounds in that bitter wail, I knew that it had gulfed me. It was not that I loved her a little, I loved her as I had never dreamed it was possible to love, and at the suddenness of the revelation the blood roared in my ears with the roar of a winter's torrent thundering white into its basin. Under the hand that lay upon my shoulder as we plunged along the rocky slope I winced and trembled as if the fingers were a white heat.
Amongst I do not know how many others, two thoughts were clear cut in my mind; one, that not for my soul's salvation would I at that time have dared to touch that hand, the other an execration, a bitter loathing of myself that in a pretence of love I had ever kissed a woman's lips. Later—but let the later speak for itself. I pray God the divine measure of a man is what he is at his best, his highest; the sorrowful thing is that for every such hilltop of reverence, self-sacrifice, self-control, there is a valley, and the valleys burrow through the darkness further and fuller than the mountains stretch their pinnacles to the light.
Beyond the out-thrust of the cliff there was a shelving flat that seemed to fall away sheer to the air, and as we turned the angle, Mademoiselle ran forward with a cry. On the flat, breast down, lay Brother Paulus, his hands, on either side his chest, gripping the lip of the rock down which he peered. Stooping, Mademoiselle caught him by the shoulder, shaking him roughly.
"Gaston? Where is Gaston?"
Without shifting his hold the monk looked up, his grey face ashen-white, the mouth trembling like a frightened child.
"Oh!" he said, drawing a shivering sigh, "would to God it were I."
"Gaston?" repeated Mademoiselle, emphasizing her words with her nervous hands; "where is Gaston? Not there, oh God! not there!" and kneeling, she too peered down the cliff.
For answer, Brother Paulus stretched out a shaking hand.
"We were at play," he said hoarsely. "All day we were at play, and I forgot that this was the Grey Leap. There was a loose stone, and he slipped upon it. I think—I think—he is still alive."
What the fingers pointed at was plainly in sight, a little wisp of white caught upon a point of rock behind the shelter of which grew a stunted pine, but I readily comprehended how she had missed seeing him. A moment back, under the revelation of her cry and the touch of her hand, I, too, had gone blind as the sound as of many waters roared in my ears. And now, as love staggered her, she could not see the little bundle of white linen which might, as Brother Paul said, be alive, but which showed no life.
"Gaston!" she cried, her voice shrill and harsh by turns. "Gaston! Gaston!"
"I think he is alive," said Brother Paulus again, though what he founded his thought on God knows, unless it was on pure faith, for there was neither sound nor motion.
"Gaston! Gaston! Gaston!" she cried again, and then, rising, to my terror she set herself to find a way down the face of the rock.
Rising also, but only to his knees, Brother Paulus caught her by the skirt. He, too, had divined her intention, and saw its hopeless folly; no cliff amongst the many in the hills had so evil a repute as the Grey Leap.
"No, Suzanne, no," said he, "it is death; there is no way, I have searched, and there is none, none."
"You have searched, you, who let him fall! Stay on your knees and pray; that is your business; mine is to find a way down to my boy, or if there is none, to make a way."
"Let him fall?" said he, with a gasp, and wincing as if she had struck him with a whip. "How did I let him fall? Could I have helped it?"
"God knows," answered she; "but he was with you, and he fell."
I suppose love is cruel at heart, cruelly hard against whatever comes between it and the thing it loves. That the priest was nowise to blame Mademoiselle knew as well as I, but she could not give him the comfort of saying so. That is why, I think, love is always feigned to be a child, for in its ignorant singleness of purpose there is nothing so ruthless. It was that same singleness of purpose that frightened me now. Matched against the lad, Gaspard Hellewyl counted for nothing, and never could count, and I dreaded lest, in seeking to hold her back, I should drive her by the nearest and most desperate path. To try a forced authority seemed the safest course; that, and a suggestion that she could help me from above, might keep her out of danger.
"You!" said I, with a rough contempt that must have hurt her had her heart not been in the bundle of linen twenty feet down the cliff. "What can you do, cumbered by your skirts as you are? Nothing but add to our trouble. Unless—yes! you may save us both by this, watch here and direct me how to climb."
"You!" The contempt was yet rougher than my own, so rough that the hurt she had escaped galled me bitterly. "We have trusted you so far, trusted you in part and because we could not help ourselves, but do you think we shall trust you there?" and with a sudden fierceness she pointed down the ledge. "Day by day you have said to me, Wait! Has your time come now, Monsieur the messenger of Louis of France? Has your time come now, Monsieur, it may be, his catspaw? Was it for this we have waited all these weeks? A touch of the foot by accident—by accident, you understand, one little slip for which no man could openly blame you—and the hope of Navarre would be where your master would have it be. Stand back, Monsieur! Stand back! If you dare to hinder me by so much as a finger, the monk and I, priest and woman though we are, will fling you after the boy."
So swift, so unexpected, so bitter was the attack that I had no answer ready, no exculpation, no assurance, no plea, and how the dead-lock would have ended I do not know had Hugues and the big Spaniard 'Tuco not come round the track at a panting trot. The group of but three where four should have been, Brother Paulus on his knees as if in prayer for a passing soul, Mademoiselle's white face blazing with accusation, her arms thrust out in defence or threat, none could say which, my own half-shrinking from the venom of her thought, not only told the truth, but with the truth linked so plausible a lie that I have never blamed them for their thought. I was of France, they of Navarre; and if Mademoiselle, into whose life I had grown daily these weeks past, could think so vilely of me, there was little wonder that their suspicion and ignorant hate out-leaped reality.
Their wits worked together. Waiting for neither explanation nor command they turned upon me, and I, taken unawares, was as a child in their hands, hardly even grasping their intent. But Mademoiselle understood, and it was not so much her shriek of No! No! No! as the grasp of her hands upon my shoulders as we overhung the very lip of descent that held us there, staggering. From the shoulders her hands slipped forwards, inwards, till her fingers knit themselves under my chin, drawing me back against her bosom; and there upon the edge we hung a moment, too breathless and shaken for words.
"Not his fault," she said at last, very hoarsely; "not his fault; tell them, Father Paul, for I cannot speak. Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, forgive them, pray forgive them!"
What the priest said I do not know, for he spoke in patois, but the grip on my wrists and arms relaxed—reluctantly, I thought, as if it was a pity to lose so excellent an opportunity of paying off old grudges. Very slowly all four drew back, breathing heavily, as men do who struggle to overmaster their breathlessness. So we stood for half a minute, then I moved aside to the upward face of the rock.
"Good!" said I, answering Mademoiselle's bitter mistrust, rather than her broken appeal upon the men's behalf. Against them I had no rancour; the fault was none of theirs, if their zeal lacked information. "Good! He is the Count de Foix! Let Foix and Navarre save him, only let them remember that there is fifty feet of a tumble below that bundle of linen there, and a bed of saw-toothed rocks to fall upon."
It is my belief that for these thirty seconds, and the minute or two of stress which preceded them, Mademoiselle had utterly forgotten the boy's danger. Instantly she turned, and, pointing downward, broke into passionate command. Her speech was that quaint mixture of slurred French, Spanish and Basque which passed for a language in Morsigny, and so was strange to me. But the clamour of the boy's need made her meaning clear, even had she spoken no word. Nudely, ruthlessly clear, and a grim gladness warmed me to see that Hugues and the Spaniard grew cold as she waxed more and more passionate, her brief authority lost at the last in a pleading almost choked by tears.
A word or two of the slurred French I understood, such as peace, Navarre, their duty, then Navarre again, and yet again Navarre. But to more than fifty feet of a fall left them cold. Peace? The peace of a loosened grip was too profound a peace for their taste! Duty? Surely the soul's first duty is to its own body! Navarre? They looked at one another; Navarre would have battles to fight, and dead men, even dead in duty, make no war. So they argued, speaking no word; and so, with my back against the cliff, I read their reasoning and laughed aloud.
But the laughter died in my mouth.
If it failed to shame them, being coarse-grained peasants, it moved Mademoiselle to an unendurable despair. With a last indignant word, some acid, biting phrase of scorn, she knelt to renew her folly of descent. But to do Hugues and the other justice, if they were careful of themselves they were careful also of her, for even before I could reach her they held her back.
"Leave me go, you cowards, leave me go!" she cried, struggling, her face wet with unconscious tears of rage and shame. "My God! is there not one man amongst you!"
"It is for Navarre," said I, giving my bitter mood rein, now she was safe. "It is for Foix and Navarre; let me beg you both to fall down fifty feet for the glory of Foix and Navarre. The thought will comfort you—till you hit the stones at the bottom."
It was not a very manly gibe, but in the best of us, and I do not claim to be that, there is a beast who only needs rousing, and at that moment the man in me was not uppermost. From the hilltop I had sunk to the valley. My new found and newer trampled love was too raw in its wounds to be just. Had not Mademoiselle, in her very last words, called me a coward with the rest? And yet it was she whose scorn and contumely forbade me to climb.
"Oh, that I were a man!" she said, swallowing her sobs till they choked her; "then would I sooner lie dead with the child."
While she was speaking, Brother Paulus had risen and stripped himself of his clinging frock. Now, flinging it aside, he turned to me.
"So would I; she is right, Monsieur Hellewyl; the shame of it is not to be borne."
"A man," said I, answering Mademoiselle, but laying the flat of my hand on the priest's breast, that he might do nothing useless. The spirit within him was strong to dare, but the flesh was weak. Had there been ten Father Pauls, they must have followed one another to the bottom of the cliff. "A man—that is, a true man—one trusts. Do you trust me, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, you are cruel!" she cried, but the sobs were softer. "Would you let the child die because of a girl's——?" she paused, searching for an adjective, but finding none that fitted her thought went on—"Must I ask your pardon, Monsieur? Must I humble myself to you? I'll do it, I'll do it gladly."
"I would have you say: I trust you. Come what may, I trust you, now and always."
As a child repeats its lesson she answered me, her face all drawn by pain, the tears still shining in her eyes. "I trust you, Monsieur, now and always, come what may."