Of what followed I have no desire to say much. Of neither the manner nor the motive of the exploit have I any reason to be proud. For the one, I am a man of the flats, and with no skill for such a piece of work. To every crevice, every cranny, every boss of rock I clung as a drowning cat clings to a crumbling bank when a swishing current tears at her flanks; and if I did not howl in my terror like the same cat, it was because I grit my teeth and whimpered inwardly, for there is no denying I was horribly afraid. Fifty feet of air hung from my ancles, dragging me down like so many pounds of lead. As to the motive, it was compounded of as many diversities as go to the mixing of an apothecary's potion. There was a little pity, a little pride, a little love, some contempt, some braggadocio, Jan Meert's throat, and a new roof to Solignac all blent through it. But most of these I left on the ledge or dropped into the void at the first touch of despair, and thenceforward pride and a dogged love of dear life were motive enough.
Blunderer as I was, and hampered by Brother Paul's frock knotted loosely across my shoulders, I must inevitably have followed the bulk of my influencing ingredients, had not Mademoiselle directed every move.
"There is a knob of rock to the right; no, more to the right—more yet—yes, that is it; but, oh, Monsieur, try it first before you trust your weight upon it, lest it crumble. It holds? Thank God for that! Now a foot below there is a crevice, and then to the left an open seam for your fingers. You have it? That is splendid, splendid! Remember, always to the right, little by little, the—the—boy lies there, and—oh, God! he is stirring. Gaston! Gaston! do not move! Jesu! Jesu! that he may not move! Lie still, Gaston, lie still,mon gars; the brave Monsieur Gaspard is going down to you, and there is nothing to fear, nothing—do you hear me?—nothing at all."
For which sore straining of the truth may she be forgiven! Nothing to fear? If there was nothing to fear, why was the sweat pouring down my back, or that sob rattling in my throat? And why was the brave Monsieur Gaspard realising fully for the first time how good a thing is life?
How long the boy had recovered consciousness I do not know, but the bewilderment of the shock had passed away, and now the courage that had squared his fists in the whin brake saved him. From the silence which followed Mademoiselle's passionate adjuration, a thin voice piped out: "I'm not afraid, Suzanne. I hear you, and I will be quiet."
"Mon brave! Thou art not afraid, no, not thou; but do not stir, my heart, no, not a finger. Monsieur Hellewyl, are you rested? There is a ledge below you sloping to the right. It must be four inches broad—good! that is it. Only a moment now Gaston, and the rest is easy." For which second straining of the truth, I say again, may she be forgiven! Later, long after, I learned that this time the lie was on my account. In the brief pause I had glanced up, and from the agony of soul stamped on my white face, Mademoiselle for the first time truly recognised the risk I ran. The Paris rabble had taught her it was no common danger that made Gaspard Hellewyl go in frank terror for his life—I use her own words—and with a quick wit she set herself to put heart in me, and at a time when there was least heart in her own hope. But I believed her, and the lie steadied my nerve. Believing the rest to be easier made it easier, for there is no courage like the courage of faith; that of manhood or despair alike pales before its forces.
Nor was the upward journey so difficult, even with the child upon my back in the monk's frock, knapsack fashion. Every foot climbed was a year or more of life gained, and Mademoiselle's face, still white, but with the tears dried from the eyes, turned down to mine, drew me. Not a word was spoken, hardly a breath except my own seemed to stir; but God, He knows what prayers went up through the silence. Then came the end. Down from the top 'Tuco stretched his long arms, grasping my wrists. With a heave, Hugues helping, I was breast high; another, and we rolled forward on the ledge, four pairs of hands holding us, with Mademoiselle sobbing and crying as she had neither sobbed nor cried while the fear of death was cold upon her.
"Let come what may, Mademoiselle?" said I, when I could command my breath.
"Let come what may," she answered, and this time it was not the tears that shone in the eyes, but the eyes behind the tears.
Thenceforward, not even 'Tuco the Spaniard held us in doubt, and as we rode into Morsigny I knew that my bleeding finger-tips had drawn nearer three such differing rewards as Mademoiselle's friendship, Jan Meert's throat, and the building again of Solignac.
Yes, the barriers were broken down, or were breaking.
That very night, when Mademoiselle came to announce that the child Gaston was more shaken than hurt, she turned at the door with one of those humble curtseys that were to me so like a blow on the face.
"When one tells a lie and is sorry, Monsieur Gaspard, should she go to her priest or—or—to the one she has lied to?"
The question was grave and the voice was grave, but there was a tender demure look on her face, and had her eyes been raised, I am sure there would have been that spirit of laughter in them which I had come to know so well.
"A lie, Mademoiselle?"
"A lie, Monsieur, a lie that hurts me to remember, for truly I am not accustomed to lie. There, on the Grey Leap, I was desperate, and—it was not quite the truth."
"That you trusted me?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"And yet you told me once that I had shown myself true?"
"Ah, Monsieur! do you not know there is a faith of head and a faith of heart? In my heart I trusted you, even from the first, but my head said, 'Nothing good can come out of Plessis'; and so, because there was no other way, I—I—Monsieur, those cowards of a Hugues and a 'Tuco drove me to it."
"And now?"
Letting slip the latch she came forward a little.
"Now? The head followed the heart even at the Grey Leap. But lest you should think that was the lie emotional instead of the lie desperate, I repeat it again. It was like this. Once you looked up—oh! it was horrible to see you hanging there on an inch of rock with all that swimming void below. Your face—Monsieur, what am I to say? A man can be brave and yet love life, and the grandest courage of all is the courage that knows and resents the desperate risk, but still goes forward. You might have come back, and yet, knowing all, and clinging hungrily to life, you went forward. Since then, Monsieur, it was no lie; since then—though what a foolish girl thinks can matter nothing to a spirit like yours—since then I—I—do you think you understand, Monsieur Hellewyl?" Her eyes were shining, but there were tears between the lashes, and the fingers of the hands clasped upon the breast twisted round and round each other in and out. "We who love and serve Navarre, who serve even as humbly as I serve, pray, God bless you, Monsieur Hellewyl."
It was my opportunity perhaps, to have passed beyond the broken barrier a little nearer to her heart, but I dared not use it. That day I had found myself to be something of a coward, but I was not coward enough to trade upon a grateful woman's generous emotion, and under cover of a newly stirred gratitude try to steal more than her sober sense would be ready to give. So, instead of reaching forward and taking those shaking hands, I folded my own behind my back and forced myself to a cold answer.
"Then at last you trust me, Mademoiselle, and will trust, come what may?"
"Oh, yes, Monsieur! I and all Morsigny. And to prove it, I shall never again ask you, 'Has Monsieur de Commines' time come yet?'"
"In that, too, you may trust me; so soon as I may, I shall speak."
"I know it well, Monsieur," and with a little grave curtsey, she left me.
I am not so stockish a man but that what followed was all very sweet—Mademoiselle's new gaiety, a gaiety of both heart and head, the boy Gaston's childish adoration, Brother Paul's thanksgiving overflowing in affection. Of Brother Paul's part in the final scene on the Grey Leap I have said nothing, and only now say this lest that kindly, gentle-hearted servant of love and mercy should be thought cold or callous. There on the ledge he had patted and fondled me with his withered hands, his heart too full to say more than, "Ah, my son, my son! God be thanked for His mercy, God be thanked! God be thanked!" And since then he had petted me like one who was a son indeed, a son long lost and newly found.
Sweet? It was blessedly, perilously sweet to a lonely man at hourly odds with his conscience, so perilously sweet that the days slipped on, and though ten times the child was mine for the taking, I persuaded myself that to wait yet a little longer was wisest. Solignac, Jan Meert, Babette, old hate and old love, were alike forgotten, and I lived on through the glorious days of early August as if there was no such shadow across the sunshine as the power and vengeance of Louis of France.
But as once on a day of feasting there came a hand upon the wall and wrote, so now, when my heart was a nest of song-birds, that sang of peace and love till my little world was full of the harmony, there came a warning which crashed the music to a discord with a curt, Thou fool! It is hate, and there is no peace.
It was always Martin's custom to meet me at the gate on the return from our daily rides, partly that all Morsigny might see I was well served, but partly, and as I love to believe, chiefly that he might the sooner see his beloved Master Gaspard. On the day of which I write he was there as usual—Brother Paul was in Pan, and Mademoiselle would neither mount nor dismount at the Château gate—but he was there with a difference. His bow was deeper, his swagger had a larger pride, and instead of himself leading Roland to the stables, he handed him over to a groom's care with an unwonted air of authority. Then with a "This way, Monsieur, it you please," he led the way to my sleeping-room, and shot the bolt behind me.
"These with haste," said he, drawing a letter from an inner pocket; "and, my faith! but they must truly be in a hurry to send all the way to Morsigny after us.To Monsieur Gaspard de Helaville, at Morsigny, in Navarre. These in haste."
At the sight of it my heart went sick as sick as when I had hung upon the sheer face of the Grey Leap. And well it might. The solid earth, and that which is so much sweeter, and, at times, so much more real, the world of my own imagining, had crumbled suddenly under my feet, and the abyss below was as deep as all eternity.
"These with haste," repeated Martin, rolling the words in his mouth with a relish. "All Morsigny knows of it; I took care of that. The seal is Monseigneur the Prince's quarterings, and that, too, I took care to tell them. These louts will better understand now what is due to a Hellewyl of Solignac, who has letters sent him a week's journey. These with haste!"
Commines' quarterings; yes, I had seen that from the first. Even the flaw in the collet was there; but what did that prove? Commines' quarterings, Commines' colour of wax, Commines' handwriting in the address, even a faint lingering of the perfume Commines most affected, and yet all, so far as Commines was concerned, might be as gross a lie as that which frayed its edges upon my heart.
"These with haste," said Martin again, but this time testily, for his curiosity was at bursting point. "What is the use of a man foundering a horse, as I'll wager he who brought this foundered his, if you don't open it, and see what's inside?"
"Brought it?" said I. "Who brought it, and where is he?"
"God knows," and Martin's face fell, the pride dying out of him like the wind from a ripped bladder. "It was pushed in at the porter's window, and yet the guard at the gate swear that no one but a goatherd or two passed Morsigny all day. But," he added, brightening up, "there it is, all the same; there it is, 'These with haste,' and with Monseigneur's seal to back it."
"And all Morsigny knows of it? A messenger comes in secret to your master, comes like a thief, and all Morsigny knows of it? You fool! oh, you fool! Remember, if harm comes of this, it is your doing."
"Oh! Monsieur Gaspard, Monsieur Gaspard! I never thought——"
"There, the mischief's done," said I, softening as I saw the rueful sorrow on his face. After all, it was the zeal of his love that had been indiscreet. He had thought to glorify his Monsieur Gaspard in the eyes of Morsigny, never looking to the consequences. "We shall see what Monseigneur has to say," and tearing off the silk that, running through the wax, bound the packet, I ripped open the outer cover.
The enclosure was both thick and crisp, as if of several folds, and across the face of the paper this was written, the writing being undoubtedly that of Monseigneur.
I am bid send you what is within. What it is I know not, but, dear lad, for God's sake see to yourself. To say so much does the King no wrong.
The folded paper was again fast sealed, as was that within it, but in each of these latter cases with a plain device. Inside the third wrapping was a foot of thin cord, and at the end of the cord a noose. Across the paper was written,So saith Tristan.
Taking out the cord by its end I thrust a finger-tip through the noose, and dangled it in Martin's face.
"These with haste, so saith Tristan," said I, and laughed in a grim contempt of my own helplessness.
"Tristan of the House of Nails?"
"Tristan of the House of Nails," I answered, and laughed again. Through the laughter there came a knocking at the door. "See who is there."
Screwing his neck as a man does who swallows his spittle to moisten a dry throat, Martin shot back the bolt, opening the door an inch or two, and peering through the crack as if behind whoever knocked he looked to find Tristan himself, with a dangle of ropes in his hand.
"It is Mademoiselle Suzanne."
Mademoiselle Suzanne! Already she had heard of the letter, already she knew that it came from Commines, and that knowledge forced a crisis. In these few seconds thought travelled fast. Should I trust her? Should I say: Here, in the yielding of the boy, is the peace of Navarre, here is France turned friend; Louis, Gaston's protector. Give him to me, and there is a final end to your fear. But swift on the heels of the question came the reply: That is to throw your responsibility on to her. She is accountable to Jean de Narbonne. Before she dared say yes, she must send to Pamplona. That meant negotiations,pour-parlers, and above all, publicity, and what publicity stood for; a warning to the adverse party in Navarre, a threat to Spain, even a confession of France's weakness. And would Louis wait? Unconsciously I tightened the noose upon my finger, and in the pain of the pinch found an answer—Louis would neither wait nor forgive. What then? Our only safety, the boy's, my own, Mademoiselle's even, lay in instant action, and crumpling the letter out of sight, I motioned to Martin to fling open the door.
As the light broke upon her, Mademoiselle shrunk still further from it across the passage.
"Monsieur, they said—Oh! I know I promised, and indeed, I trust you—but they said there was a letter, and that Monsieur de Commines had written. Have you—that is, is it good news, Monsieur?"
"Have no fear; good news, Mademoiselle," lied I, with the string swinging from my finger. "I was just about to search for you, and—oh, yes, good news, good news indeed, only all is not yet quite clear."
"Must we still wait, Monsieur?"
At the disappointment in her tone I winced, but there was nothing for it but to brazen out my part as best I could.
"That is just it, we must wait. But this time, not for long, and to shorten the waiting I think that to-morrow I shall ride into La Voulle, perhaps with Gaston?"
"To La Voulle with Gaston? That is a long ride for the child."
"Long? Surely not. He rides as far every day, but he rides as a dog runs, up and down, here and there, so that we lose count of distance. I thought it would please Brother Paul to meet him in La Voulle. You know he returns to-morrow from Pau."
"But,"—and in the shadow I saw a touch of colour flush her cheeks—"I do not think I can go to La Voulle, at least not to-morrow. Once all is clear between us, and Brother Paul is home, it will be different."
"Is not all clear now, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, Monsieur!" she replied, dropping me the curtsey I so hated; "I mean between France and Navarre."
How I cursed Martin in my heart for a tactless, blundering booby. Here was my chance to say: And must it be always and only France and Navarre? May it never be Suzanne D'Orfeuil and Gaspard Hellewyl? Always Kingdom and Kingdom, and never man and maid as lover and lover? The peace of one's country is very well, very splendid and much to be desired; but we are men and women as well as patriots, and the heart has a peace of its own that is sweeter and dearer and yet more to be desired than that of France and Navarre. But with that leathern-faced idiot standing at my elbow, staring open-mouthed, how could I say all that, or any part of it? Ten chances to one, if I had, he would have reminded me of Brigitta under the beech tree, and poured his contempt upon Mademoiselle Suzanne as he had upon her.
"For a Hellewyl of Solignac, you have a strange taste," he would have said. "First it was a swineherd's daughter you chose for your philandering, and now it is——" and he would have blown out his cheeks with an exploding puff that left the suggestion worse than plain words.
And how would Mademoiselle have looked at such a tale? I did not dare consider that point, so answered soberly:
"To-morrow will make all clear, Mademoiselle; I can promise you that."
Next morning it was easy to find an excuse for taking Martin with us: Ninus needed exercise; it might be necessary to send a messenger to Monsieur de Commines—any tale was sufficient. Of the little Count's willingness to ride so far there never was a question. Had I said to him: Monsieur Gaston, let us ride to Plessis; he would have answered: At what time shall I order the horses, Monsieur Gaspard?
To avoid the great heat of the day, and that at the first we might spare our horses, we left Morsigny early. How far or how fast we might have to travel beyond La Voulle I could not tell. It was there the King's letter was to be opened, and where it bade us ride, however great the distance, there ride we must.
Naturally of this second reason Mademoiselle knew nothing as she set us on our way. At first she walked beside Gaston's pony, the fingers of one hand twisted in its mane. The sleeve of her linen bodice had slipped back to the elbow, leaving the arm bare and whiter than marble against the dark hide of the shaggy beast. Riding behind, I saw that though the boy in his eager excitement was full of childish words, she answered nothing to his many questions, and at the last her farewell was brief.
"Kiss me, my heart," she said, looking up suddenly.
Without checking his pony, Gaston stooped aside, and as their lips met, she clipped him in her arms.
"Ah, Suzanne! you will have me down!" he cried petulantly, and loosening her clasp, she loitered back to where I followed.
"Monsieur," she began, laying her hand on my bridle hand, but with so much unconsciousness in the act that I could no more have covered it with my right than I could have covered a man's, "you will remember how anxious I am, and how hard it is to wait? It is always worse for us women than for you. You act, you men; you work, you forget yourselves in danger, lose yourselves in the thing to be done; while we can but wait at home and hope and—yes, thank God, we can always pray. Ah, Monsieur, how I shall pray until you return!"
"Was Paris waiting?"
"That was once in a lifetime, and was easier than this. You will remember?"
"Oh! be sure I shall remember; my fear is lest you forget."
"I, Monsieur? Forget what?"
"Gaspard Hellewyl; when there is no more need for him, and Gaspard Hellewyl is—elsewhere. Will you remember then, Mademoiselle Suzanne?"
For the first time that morning a little pucker of a smile caught up the corners of her mouth, and her eyes lightened; nor, I remembered afterwards, did she lift her hand from where it rested, though her fingers shook; neither, let me say, was there any pressure; no, not the faintest.
"Oh, Monsieur! be sure I shall remember Paris."
"Mademoiselle, what do I care for Paris?"
"Tours, then, and how eager you were to kill a man—only there was none to kill."
"No, nor Tours either."
"The Grey Leap? Ah, Monsieur! surely you do not think I can ever forget the Grey Leap?"
"Not even the Grey Leap; I said Gaspard Hellewyl."
The smile deepened a little. With downcast eyes and hands now clasped demurely before her, she dropped back a pace.
"Now, Monsieur, it is you who forget. You forget you are a great gentleman of Flanders, the friend of the Prince de Talmont, the envoy of the King of France; you forget you are Monsieur Gaspard de Helville! the bearer of a great name—did we not agree that it was a great name? While I—— You will bring Gaston safe home to his nurse, will you not, Monsieur de Helville?"
She spoke so softly, with such a hesitating depreciation, that I could not tell if it was in raillery or in earnest, but it seemed to me that the glance flashed into my eyes at the last was not all mischief, "You are—Mademoiselle Suzanne. I dare not trust myself to say what more you are, but God be thanked for you. My prayer is that some day I may speak plainer, to-day I must not. As I sit here I am a poor gentleman of Flanders, so poor that I have not even a roof to offer the woman I would dare to love as wife. But it is my hope this peace to Navarre may change all that, may roof over Solignac and give me enough of my father's lands to make that wife, not a great lady of Flanders, but the happiest, the most reverenced, the best beloved. It is in that hope I ride to-day to—to—La Voulle, to end that which is begun; and but for that hope, I swear to you I would never call Louis King even by service. Ah, Mademoiselle Suzanne, Mademoiselle Suzanne! trust me, I pray; not a little, but trust me much until I dare to ask to be trusted all in all. God keep you, Mademoiselle."
"God keep you, Monsieur," she answered softly, again raising her drooped eyes, and this time there was no mockery in them, not even mischief—a wistfulness rather, a pathos almost the beginning of tears. "Believe me, I truly trust you. Once already I have said I have ever found you the truest gentleman, and, Monsieur, I do not see any reason to change, nor, I am sure, will you give me reason."
"Then, adieu, Mademoiselle!"
"No, no; adieu is a long word! But, lest you should forget me in La Voulle, keep that to remind you of—Morsigny!"
Reaching up, she dropped a half-blown rose on the saddle before me, gave Roland two or three little dainty pats on the neck, then, before I could take her hand, she stepped aside between the whins, now no longer in their glory of gold, and so left me.
Perhaps it was best so. The witchery of that last upward glance had so moved me, tingling every nerve to the finger-tips, that had I once touched her hand as man to maid, I must have blurted out more than was wise or even honourable in one who had work to do for Louis of France. But if that sweet folly was denied me, the rose at my lips and her last clear look, so grave, so shy, so almost tender, set my heart dancing; and slow as was our ride to La Voulle, the little Count had no cause to complain of my gaiety.
Had I dared, I would have avoided not only The Good Queen inn, but La Voulle itself. But balanced against the risk of interference from the townsfolk was that of disobedience to the King's orders, and of the two I feared the wrath of Louis more than all La Voulle howling beyond the door. If he said, Return to the inn, he had his reasons, and the man who dared question them was a fool to his own hurt.
Riding up to the door, with its swinging, half-effaced sign of I do not know what Queen of Navarre's portrait, I enquired boldly for Brother Paulus. Boldness was our safety, and for that day, unknown to himself, Brother Paulus was to guarantee our good faith. If the person of the little Count was well known in La Voulle, so was that of the chaplain to Morsigny, and my plan was to ride out with the priest in company as if we returned home by the shortest way. It was all so simple, so natural, who would raise a question? Once clear of the town I would give Paul a letter to Mademoiselle, and, with or without his consent, seize Gaston and gallop for the King's tryst. Let that be where it might, Louis could be trusted to have smoothed the road for us.
"Brother Paulus?"
"Certainly, Monsieur. He arrived from Pau late last night, and being tired, keeps his room."
"Good! Monsieur le Comte and I will go to him. Do you see to the horses, Martin, and come up for instructions in an hour, for I think we shall leave early. Tell me," I went on, to the servant who led the way, "is Volran in the house? Yes? Then let him know that the Count de Foix and Monsieur de Helville dine here to-day."
So far Martin had not been taken into my confidence, but I calculated that in the time named I should have read the King's letter and so be in a position to arrange our plans. In the carrying out of these Martin's cunning and experience would help me. Volran too, who might have later orders for us, would be warned by our presence.
As I spoke, a door facing the stair-head opened, and Brother Paul in his black frock appeared on the landing.
"Ah! my two sons, is it you? Whose kind thought was it that you should come so far to meet so poor and lonely an old man? Mademoiselle Suzanne's?"
"No, it was my Monsieur Gaspard's," shouted little Gaston, rushing forward, and flinging his arms round the monk's knees. "Isn't Monsieur Gaspard good to me,mon père?"
"But better still to me,petit fils. We please ourselves in pleasing the young, but few give a thought to please the old, and yet there are times when the old sadly need comforting." Reaching out above the little lad's head he caught my hand in his and held it. "In a good day for us he came to Navarre; we must try and keep our Monsieur Gaspard, we two."
"He shall marry Suzanne,mon père, and when I am Count de Narbonne I shall give him an estate."
"Not Suzanne, I think," answered Brother Paul, looking me smilingly in the face as one who would say, Be tolerant to his ignorance. "I do not think that would do, but we shall find some one else."
"And while you are looking for her," said I laughing, "I shall go and see that there is dinner enough, lest I starve while I wait."
Not Suzanne! said Brother Paulus, and how well I understood the significance of his indulgent smile. Gentle as a Saint John, tolerant as a Saint Francis, he was aristocrat to his finger-tips. A Hellewyl of Solignac marry Gaston de Foix's nurse! No wonder he smiled and said, Not Suzanne! It was all of a piece with the generous little lad's foolish talk of granting estates. A Hellewyl of Solignac would naturally be courteous to one in Suzanne's position, but more than courteous, no! and it was with a sudden flush of discomfort that I remembered Brigitta, and what Martin had called the philandering under the beech trees. Thank God there had been no thought of philandering with Suzanne D'Orfeuil.
My intention was to ask Jean Volran for an empty room in which to examine the King's letter, and at the foot of the stair I found him waiting. But it was not the Jean Volran I had known for a night and morning. The obsequious smile, the almost servile cringing, were no longer there; there was no deferential welcome for the great, no fawning upon the happy man who bore the King's letter and was the King's will in the flesh.
Then, had I said, Set La Voulle ablaze and thrust your hand into the fire,Le Roy le veult, he would have done it and made no protest. Now his back was as straight as my own, his mien as distant, his eye as supercilious. He eyen outstared me, as if he were Gaspard Hellewyl and I Jean Volran.
"You have kept me waiting, Monsieur," said he, pushing a door open and leading the way into just such a room as I desired.
"I? I have kept you waiting? What insolence is this?"
"Tut, tut!" he retorted, turning his back on me while he closed the door carefully. "Did you really think that for such a post as this his Majesty had chosen a man with no better brains than to fill wine pots for fools to empty? You have not only kept me waiting, but, what is worse, you have wasted your time with your dilly-dallying, and made the King to wait also. I would have had what was wanted here inside of a week. Why the King chose to employ you at all is a mystery, unless it was that if his plan miscarried it would please him better to see a Flanders man hang for it. The King did not send you to Morsigny to gather roses," he went on with a sneer and a nod at the flower I carried buckled to my bonnet, "but I guessed the message I brought you yesterday would put another thought than girls and girls' love tokens into your head."
"You? None but goatherds passed Morsigny yesterday."
"And I was one of them, as I have been many things in his Majesty's service. Now, Monsieur, the King's letter, if you please."
But there I had him at a disadvantage, and was in no mood to abate a jot of it.
"Be what you like, goatherd, scullion, tapster," I answered, with as brusque an incivility as his own, "that is between you and the King, and no odds to me, but the letter is my affair."
"Why, man," he cried, too astounded at my opposition to take offence, "don't you know you are but a catspaw, and I am here to finish the affair? Come, come, you have cackled your little crow over me, and we are quits—the letter, and waste no time."
"Even allowing for the goatherd and scullion," I answered, "I take you for a kind of a gentleman, and so do not say you lie, only, I heard nothing of this at Plessis. On the contrary, His Majesty was quite clear, that which I began I was to finish. Show me your warrant, but I warn you, nothing less than the King's signet and sign manual will move me."
For a moment he stood clenching and unclenching his hands before him, too full of passion to find words. Had he not been in his innkeeper's dress, and so without a sword, he would have tried force, so mad with rage was he. Then he turned aside to the window, and stared between the bars into the court where Martin was rubbing down Roland.
"You play your game with a high hand, Monsieur," he said at last; "but if you think I have sweated here in the grime all these weeks while you were feasting at Morsigny, just to see you pocket the profits, you don't know your man."
But when, with another turn of his heel, he would have stridden past me, I stepped between him and the door.
"Monsieur, who shall pay you your wages I do not know, but you are not coming back to stab me unawares and rob me of what the King has committed to my trust. Since you have brought me here to this room, in this room you shall stay until I have read his Majesty's letter. Nor do I see why we should quarrel. If the end of this affair has indeed been committed to you, show me some token? God knows I have no love for the work. You have no token? No warrant? Nothing but your bare word? Then, since you profess to know so much, tell me at least what steps I am next to take, something, anything to prove you are in the King's confidence, and that your bare word is not a bare lie? You cannot? Then tell me this: if you were Gaspard Hellewyl, and I you, how far would you trust the man who came with nothing but a blustering wheedle of words in his mouth? Not a foot! Not an inch! Nor will I. It is my life, Monsieur Tapster-goatherd, it is my honour, and by God! I'll give neither the one nor the other to your keeping. Stand there by the window, Monsieur, and if the King bids me give you the letter, or—or anything else I control except these two, then, on the faith of a gentleman, you shall have it, but not unless."
Three times while I spoke I saw No! in his face, though he answered nothing; but as I ended, he half laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and did as he was bidden with a swagger that matched his clothing badly. Who he was, or what his rank, I never knew, but clothes so much make the man that not even the Prince de Talmont himself would in like circumstances have looked anything else than that very ridiculous object—a country inn-keeper in a rage.
Partly to gain time for thought, but partly, I confess, that his helplessness might gall him deeper, I played with the King's letter, examining silk, seal, and superscription as if all were strange, instead of as familiar as the bottom of my own pocket. The situation was growing clearer to me with every passing minute, and it will have been noticed that I do not think rapidly.
No doubt the fellow glowering at me from the window shutter was not alone in La Voulle; no doubt, too, his ten-crowns-a-month-cut-throats would be this, that, or the other about the inn—groom, drawer, even cook. Three or four of these there might be, but not more. Where there is a secret, there is no safety in numbers. Against these I had only Martin, unless, indeed, I played the bold game of raising La Voulle to defend its young Count, and as a climax carried him off myself! My scheme would have to be recast, which was a pity; its very simplicity had guaranteed success. But the nature and extent of the change must depend on the King's wishes, so with a smiling nod of encouragement in patience to my host at the window, I broke the seal.
Either the crackle of the paper or the polite impertinence roused him. Setting his foot against the angle of the wall, he stiffened himself for a spring. Once he had me on my back, circumstances would lead him. If his own fellows came in just then, there was an end to Gaspard Hellewyl; if La Voulle heard the scuffle, he would cry Treachery! and trust for justification to the King's letter found in my hands. But I saw the move, and hitched the handle of my sword forward a foot. It was a parry to his thrust, and back he lounged again against the shutters.
Tearing the outer wrappings to small pieces, I scattered them on the floor. The next sheet was a blank, nor, though I held it up to the light, could I trace a mark of any kind. Not so the third sheet, for eight or ten words were sprawled across it in short sentences. But at the first line the exultation of triumph over my enemy by the window fell cold and flat; the letter was in Latin, and never a word of Latin had I learned in my five-and-twenty years of life.
Latin! Why the plague Latin? No doubt it was part of the old Plessis fox's scheme for hiding his identity. Neither Jacob's voice nor Esau's hand must show the truth, though the supplanter and the Ishmaelite, he whose hand was against every man's, joined in him their cunning. Suppose the letter was seized upon me, what then? Outside the seal was Commines', the writing Commines'. Inside was a tag of monkish Latin scrawled as if an earwig had scratched its tail across the paper; who could connect either with Louis in Plessis if Louis chose to say No! with a sneer, and let Navarre's vengeance on the man who carried the letter pass unrequited? No one; and let it so pass he would, if, indeed, his virtuous indignation did not itself call aloud for vengeance. Louis had no mercy on failures.
But Latin! Why the plague Latin? Then I began to see. The cover once destroyed, Latin might come from Spain, from the Empire, from England—anywhere! And behind it France lay hidden in safety. More than that, and at the thought I ground my teeth, it was perhaps a tongue that brute grinning from the window at my perplexity could translate. If so, it was his turn to smile, and as I met his eye there was little of politeness in his ridicule. No doubt dismay was stamped across my face easier to be read than the words on the paper, and my need was his opportunity.
Not to give him the satisfaction of sarcastically offering his services, I spoke first.
"Do you read Latin, Monsieur?"
"Latin?" he returned, a scowl wrinkling his face. "What new nonsense is this?" Then an inspiration broke upon him, and he came briskly forward, his hand outstretched. "Ah! now I understand. You wish me to translate the King's letter? Certainly, Monsieur, certainly."
But tapping my sword hilt, I motioned him off. "Keep your distance, my good fellow. The writing is large enough to be read from where you are."
Reversing the paper, so that the light fell full upon it, I watched his face, and if ever a man was blankly puzzled it was my friend the goatherd-tapster. That he was as innocent of Latin as myself I guessed, but with the King's tools as with himself it was not wise to assume overmuch. What he had hoped was that I would put the letter into his hands, and once there he would have risked his skin to keep it.
"Well?"
"It is difficult," said he, playing to gain time. "I wonder why his Maj——ah! ah! ah! I begin to see. A man grows rusty in his learning; you find it so, do you not? But now I have it; yes, yes, just what I expected. You know no Latin, Monsieur de Helville?"
"Not a word. French and Flemish, nothing more."
From the paper he glanced up at me cunningly, his eyes narrowed, but with a malicious smile peeping through the lids, then back to the paper. Out went a forefinger, and nodding his head he passed from letter to letter, picking out the words as a child might spell his way through a hornbook. This he did twice, till, thinking he wanted to commit them to memory, I snatched the paper away.
"If you can translate, translate and have done with it."
"But I wish to have it exact," he protested. "Well, then, here it is," and again there was the cunning upward glance. "'That which you have brought give to him who waits; return then whence you came until the King writes a third time.' It is as plain as day, now that I have mastered the translation. I am he who waits; so now, Monsieur, give it to me and let me go."
Before he spoke I knew he was playing with me, and had no more Latinity in him than I had. For whatever quality the King had chosen him, it was not for that of a good liar. But the splendid audacity of the lie filled me with admiration, and that I might draw him to a greater fall I led him on a little.
"But what are your orders, or have you, too, a letter?"
"That," he answered, with just such a little smiling nod as I had given him, "is my affair, and between me and the King. Your own words! Come, Monsieur, give it to me, and let me go."
"It!" said I banteringly, for I was fool enough to play him further. "Is your Latin not rusty? And if it is rusty, may it not be wrong? Should your 'it' not be 'him'?"
"Him?" he repeated. "Him? What do you mean? By God! I have it! It's the boy upstairs—it's the little Count himself! Monsieur, Monsieur, you fly at high game, and I offer you my apologies; in some things you are not such a fool as I took you to be. To lead him like a pet lamb with a ribbon, and into his own town, too! No violence, no noise, nothing indiscreet! Monsieur, I could not have done as well myself. Can a man say more?"
"But the Latin?" said I. "What of the It, Master Scholar?"
"Who said It? Not I.That which you have brought, was what I said;That, That, not It, andThatis the Count de Foix!"
"And I am to return whence I came?"
"So it seems, Monsieur, and I wish you joy when they find the boy does not return with you. I fear they'll hang you, faith of a gentleman! I fear they will."
"Stop a minute, I'm not there yet. I was to wait the King's third letter, was I not?"
"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "You have had two already, and so the next must be the third—any fool can see that!"
"Just so, dear Monsieur Volran; and it was a fool who saw it. Since when was his Majesty among the prophets? Yesterday the second letter came, came because the King was kept waiting, and yet this, written two months ago, foresaw it, and so the next will be the third. How, two months ago, could the King know, there would be need for a second and so promise a third? My compliments on your imagination, but you do not lie well."
"Lie, Monsieur, lie?"
"Bah! Never bluster with your sheath empty; bare hands cannot bully hard steel. God forgive us! but we all lie at times. I did awhile back when I said I knew no Latin. I know one tag—a worthy monk taught it to me a month ago, when, out hawking, the kite missed its stoop. How is this it ran?Laqueo—let me see;laqueo Venantium—ah! I forget. Like you, I am rusty. But I remember its meaning. Shall I translate, Monsieur scholar-tapster? It has something to do with an escape from the snare of the fowler."
"Oh," he cried, stamping, "you shall pay for this!"
With my hand upon the door I turned upon him.
"Dare so much as lift a finger, dare so much as breathe a threat, and King's man though you are, bound up in the same bundle as me though you are, you'll find the Morsigny gallows waiting for you here at La Voulle; nor will Louis say more than, Curse him for a blundering ass! It is I who hold the King's orders, not you; cross me in my obedience at your peril!" and passing out, I struck the door noisily with the letter.
The crackle of the paper was a louder voiced threat than my own, and as such the man I left swearing behind me understood it.
Of the many thoughts that danced across the darkness of my mind, thoughts as impotent of light as fireflies flashing through a summer's gloom, one alone brought any satisfaction—Brother Paulus could make clear the King's instructions. Nor was I afraid that through seeking his aid would come any premature disclosure of our scheme for securing the peace of Navarre. The choice of Latin was now finally clear to me. It was not simply that it concealed the writer's identity, but it readily lent itself to translation. Thanks be to God! the ministrations of the Church are always to be found in this Christian country of ours, and where the Church is, there is learning. Louis could be trusted not to betray his purposes. Through fear of death he was the Church's humble son and servant in all things spiritual, but woe to the priest who, presuming on his office, meddled in things temporal to the detriment of France. At the door Brother Paul met me, his finger on his lip.
"He is asleep," he whispered, beckoning me to be quiet. "The early rising and the ride have tired him. A noble-hearted boy, Monsieur—loving, brave, unselfish. I think he will grow to be a good man, a hard thing for one born great. Some day Navarre will bless Gaston de Foix. Speak softly, though indeed a thunderclap would hardly waken him now, he sleeps so sound."
"So much the better, he has still far to ride. All the better, too, for now we can talk more freely. Father Paul, what does this say?"
It was wonderful how his eyes lightened. At Morsigny he had made no parade of learning, but, hiding it out of sight, had lowered his talk to the level of our ignorance. But the scrawl of Latin was to him as the face of his mistress to a devout lover, and it was with a kind of quaint reverence that he took the crumpled paper, smoothing out the creases tenderly.
"This, my son? Where did this come from?"
"I found it a while back. It is Basque, is it not?"
"Basque! No, no, Latin, and, I think, better in the letter than in the spirit."
"Latin! and that I should have taken it for Basque! I shall have to go to school again. What does it say, Father? Curiosity always has an itch for the unknown."
"That, too, is the gift of God, or how would learning grow? But this—this is foolish, or worse.Numquid vivet?Non vivet.Morte morietur, sed statim interficies. Oh, my son, that is not good! Either it is part of some horoscope, a sinful wresting of their secrets from the stars, or else an unhappy soul has sold himself to Satan for a necromantic prophesy, and such a prophesy!"
"But, Father," I cried, almost forgetting both love and reverence in impatience, "what, is it?—what is it?"
"Hush!" he whispered, shaking a warning finger at me. "Remember the child; we must not disturb his sleep. This is the meaning: 'Shall he live? He shall not live! Let him die the death, thou shalt surely kill him.' Either a foolish jest," he went on, stooping over the paper, "or a spark from Hell, and at times the one is not far from being the other. The Latin is sound enough as Latin goes in these degenerate days; that is what I meant by saying the letter was better than the spirit. It is the reverse of the text. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Here it is the letter that is sound and wholesome, but the spirit killeth. Note the terseness of it. Either the necromantic or the devil, his master, was—oh! my son, my son, what is the matter? Art thou ill? Faint? The sun this morning? Jesu! What is it?"
How could I answer? How could I do more than stand aghast? What a plot it was! What a damnable, cunning plot! What a playing on the passions—love, greed, vengeance, and what passed with the King for piety! What an interweaving of life and death and the powers of Hell! Oh, what cunning, what damnable cunning! If a bribe will buy this houseless, ragged wretch, this friendless outcast from his class, then there is Solignac and the old lands of his house waiting for him in Flanders. If love will hold him obedient, here is his mistress hostage to my mercy, the mercy of Louis of France! the mercy of the rack in Plessis and Tristan's House of the Great Nails, that all may know this is the King's vengeance for a duty unfulfilled! Or perhaps hate will move him! Then take Jan Meert, take my own ancient tool, who has never known a scruple to trip him in my service—take him, and do as you list by him. Or if these fail, if Navarre outbribes me, if a new love quenches the old, if revenge grows cold, there still remains the Cross of Saint Lo whereon who swears falsely perishes both in this world and the next. Remember the child! said Brother Paul, his finger on his lips. Remember him? Would God I could forget him!
Something of this was in my face, but not to be read aright by the gentle heart beside me, for Brother Paul took me in his arms, fearing I would fall, and how could a priest of God knowingly so hold one sworn to shed innocent blood? But I put him aside.
"The paper, quick!" and snatching it from his hand, I tore it into fragments too small to be pieced together again. I do not pretend I had any clear plan in my head; a blind instinct often moves us, and it is only later we understand why we did thus and thus.
But what Brother Paul failed to read in my face he gathered from the sudden violence of the act, though dimly. What mind as innocent as his could, on the instant, plumb to such an infamy? Again, being his Master's servant, he took me in his arms, laying his hands upon my shoulders, his grey face all lined with sorrow.
"You, Son Gaspard? Ah! I see, I see! Satan hath desired to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed to the Father for thee. There, on the Grey Leap, I prayed; He has ventured his life to repair my fault, give me his life, O Father, spare him and give me his Greater Life. And so it shall be. I know it by faith, and if we could not know by faith, how could we live at all? Tell me your trouble, my son. Am I not Father Paul, God's Priest, and your friend? Confess yourself, and remember you speak not to me, but in the secret ear of God."
And I spoke. Kneeling between his knees as he sat upon a settle, I told him all from the beginning. What passed between us at the first is for no man's curiosity. Then, that being done with, and we back in the world again, the world in which men must use their lame wits and feeble understandings as best they can, I, tramping up and down the room, cried,
"But what next? I cannot see what next; it is all dark."
"No, no," said Paul, "not all dark, never all dark. No, my son, no; the Lord God never leaves a soul in the All Dark. Somewhere, somewhere, there is a gleam, and that gleam is an inspiration. Is it love? Follow it, my son, follow it. Duty? Then follow duty. A clean conscience? In God's name, follow it wherever it leads. Who am I to say more? The gleam is the one divine thing in us, therefore follow the gleam, follow it, follow it."
"It is easy for you, sitting there, to say so," and pausing in my walk, I stood over him; "but the arm of that cunning devil in Plessis can reach, as he told me, from Arragon to England, and from the verge of the Empire to the sea in the west. Gleam? There is no gleam."
"There is your oath, my son."
"My oath? An oath taken in blindness is no oath."
But Brother Paul shook his head.
"A Christian man's oath is the honour of his soul. When you swore your oath at Plessis there was always an alternative you could follow."
"To return?"
"To return," he repeated.
"But—that is death?"
"I said it was the honour of the soul. The ancient tongue has a motto,Prius mori quam fidem fallere. Sooner die than break faith—faith with God and all that is best in ourselves, faith with that unhappy woman who for no fault of hers, for no cause but that she loved you, stands to-day in your place. Were you Paulus and I Son Gaspard, I would go back to Plessis—and die. Not that I dare to judge for you."
"I cannot see it," I cried, the love of life and the love of Suzanne both strong within me. Was her rose not buckled to my bonnet? "Father! Father! Is there a God at all that we men are put to such straits?"
Priest though he was, he did not so much as utter a rebuke, but, rising, he laid his hands upon my shoulders as he had done almost at the first.
"I am not afraid of your doubt, for listen to this, my son: the man who has never greatly doubted will never greatly believe, never greatly love, never, even, greatly live. Every doubt a man puts under him is a step nearer to perfect faith, perfect love, and perfect life. Again I say, I cannot judge for you. But because doubt is a devil who must be fought alone and in the desert of solitude, I will go outside the door—outside the door, but never outside your life. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee! the Lord——" and then he slipped off into his beloved Latin, ending indet tibi pacem.
Softly lifting the latch and softly closing it, he was gone.
Pacem! That was peace. But where was I to find peace? Unless such a peace as lay so coldly at the foot of the Grey Leap that it had chilled 'Tuco's courage. From Arragon to England, from the Empire to the sea, Louis would find me out. Return to Plessis? I knew what that meant. Peace! It was easy for a priest to say Peace, peace! easy for the man who ran no risks to say Follow the gleam! but for me not so easy.
Just then Gaston turned on the bed, drawing a deep sigh of placid rest and contentment; Gaston, the child of whom Louis had written, Thou shalt surely kill him! Gaston, helpless and asleep. He shall die and not live, said Louis of France; his life for yours! Yet Paul had left him in my charge without a plea, without a pledge, without even the tremor of a troubled doubt. That moved me to my very depths.
To be thought capable of a great action, of a great sacrifice, makes both possible. I do not mean the sparing of the child. Thank God, that was never in doubt! But the fulness of Brother Paul's faith meant this to me: I trust you to do that which is highest, let come what may. That meant, return to Morsigny, put the child in safety, and humble yourself in the eyes of the woman you love; ride then to Plessis, and say: Here am I, let the woman I have ceased to love—no! the woman I have never loved—let her go her way. That meant—God knows what next, but nothing that a man could think upon without a shiver. If the woman who had done no wrong would writhe and scream and curse for what the King would call my treachery, what might not the traitor expect? And yet, that way shone the gleam, and another's faith in me gave me faith in myself.
But it was a relief to have the excuses of voices outside the door to put thought aside and find refuge in activity. It was Martin, come for orders as I had bidden him. Back to Morsigny, and with as little delay as possible, seemed the best plan. Once the boy was again safe behind its walls my responsibility ended. Yes, Morsigny first, and for that day it was my wisdom to look no further, lest I should see too much and be afraid.
But while I debated how best to avoid an altercation with the man who called himself Jean Volran, Volran's voice came from the stairhead with Martin answering loudly, roughly, as if in altercation; then followed a scuffle, the sound of a fall, and again Martin's voice:
"Monsieur Gaspard! Monsieur Gaspard! Quick! quick!"
He was standing at the stairhead, his back to me, his shoulders crouched, his knees bent, the right foot advanced, and both elbows hugging his ribs. I could not see it, but from his attitude I knew his sword was out, hidden by the bulk of his body. Back against the wall, where the well of the stairs made an angle, was Brother Paul, his arms raised in astonished protest; above the line of the topmost step jean Volran was rising to his knees where Martin had flung him.
"There is some roguery, Monsieur Gaspard," said Martin, but though he heard the latch click he was too wary of fence to turn his head. "This fellow, who an hour ago was a thieving inn-keeper, has now a sword at his hip——"
"You blundering fool!" said Volran, rising and shaking himself. "You took me unawares, but you shall pay me as fully as if you did it aforethought. Monsieur de Helville, there are only two of you, but I have four, and we seven can laugh at La Voulle."
"This fellow," went on Martin, as if Volran had never spoken, "this fellow came up here three at a stride, and was told by Father Paul you were busy. He would not take No for an answer, but tried to bustle us, so I tipped him downstairs to teach him patience."
"Monsieur de Helville, it is the King's business, and there is no time to waste," cut in Volran. "Bid this chattering idiot of yours be silent. You two can never hold the boy, and you know it. But we will help you. Come, sir, finish what brought you to La Voulle."
Putting Martin aside, I took his place on the top step.
"Have no fear, Jean Volran, or whoever you are, we two can hold the boy safe as far as Morsigny."
"Morsigny?"
"I said Morsigny."
"Morsigny? Then for what have I wasted three months in this rat-hole of a La Voulle? That you might march the Count de Foix into the town, and then march him home again? Was it for that the King sent you to Navarre?"
"That is between myself and the King, as I told you once already to-day, but the Count de Foix goes back to Morsigny."
"Mad!" said he. "Stark mad!" In his eagerness he came up a step or two, one hand stretched out before him as if to grip my attention and hold it. "Do you know who it is you deride? Whose face you slap? It is Louis'—Louis'. Why, man, he will crush you as I would a fly."
"Keep your distance," answered I; "you are five and we are two, but we have the vantage, and in narrow stairs two are as good as twenty. Come up but one step more, and Father Paul will shout A Rescue! from the window behind, and then you will be the flies."
"Better do it without waiting," said Martin. "Rouse the town, Father, or they may attack us on the road."
But I held the priest back.
"Not yet; I have a use for Monsieur Volran's life, and, liar though he is, I will trust his word. In spite of the trade he follows, there is enough of the gentleman in him for that. You see how it is, Monsieur Jean Volran? Let Father Paul put his head out o' window and shout, and there's an end to you and your four; with the townsfolk below and us above, it's a choice of rope or steel. Swear that neither you nor any of your four will molest us on the road, and, for aught I care, you may all go to the devil."
"Or to Plessis," said Martin.
"I mean to Plessis; that is my use for him. Do you swear, Monsieur Volran?"
For a moment he hesitated, glancing down the lower flight of stairs to the hall below. That his four transformed scullions were waiting him there, I knew, for they could not keep their clumsy feet quiet on the flagging, and he was calculating chances.
"Be ready, Father," said I softly. "If he stirs even an inch upward, shout Murder! Navarre to the rescue! Navarre! Navarre!"
But there was no need. With a snarl and a stamp of the foot he stepped back to the landing.
"Do you think this ends it?" he cried, shaking both fists up at us, his face all twisted with passion. "By God! No!"
"Do you swear, Monsieur Volran?"
"Swear?" he frothed. "What can I do but swear? Yes; Louis can pay to-day's debt better than I can, and so I swear. Oh, what a payment that will be! What a payment! What a payment! God send me there to hear you curse the bribe that has bought to-day's treachery."
"No bribe," answered I a little huskily, for the venom of his exultation shook my nerve more than any threat could have done. "But tell the King this: Gaspard Hellewyl has failed to fulfil his mission, and according to his oath returns to Plessis by the road of his Majesty's choosing."
"To Plessis!" answered Volran incredulously. "Bah! Why add a lie to treason? To Plessis!" and in his contempt he laughed.
But from behind, Brother Paul laid his hands upon my shoulders, drawing me back into his embrace until I felt the throb of his heart.
"It is the gleam, my son; God be praised, who never leaves us in the dark."
"It is my oath, Father; and you, Monsieur, do you carry your message to the King."
For a moment Jean Volran stood watching me curiously; then he drew himself up and raised his sword to the salute.
"Till we meet in Plessis, Monsieur."
But let it not be supposed that we trusted entirely to Jean Volran's oath; those who served Louis' court of honour too easily found absolution for vows broken in the King's interest. From the watch-tower in the steeple of Saint Suzanna the band of five were seen to ride northward, and when, having dined, we left La Voulle, it was with an armed company of the townfolk, to do honour, as Brother Paul said, to Monseigneur the Count de Foix.
These we dismissed as soon as Morsigny was in sight; nor did we lose time on our way. It was little Gaston's first forced march, and hugely he enjoyed it. But we elders were silent; when the heart is troubled, the tongue commonly takes holiday. Once only did Brother Paul speak.
"From the bottom of my heart I pity him," he said, turning to me suddenly.
"Pity whom? Jean Volran?"
"That most unhappy man, Louis of France. I sometimes think—though it is heresy, from which God deliver us all!—I sometimes think we make our own hell, people it with devils of our own creating, and by dwelling with them become like them."
"If by hell you mean our own follies," I began bitterly, but Brother Paul stopped me, and his voice was infinitely gentle.
"No, my son, no—not that; such pains truly are stripes of healing. But Louis! What a mind he must have to think that every man is such another as himself, and—oh, for poor human nature!—how often he must have found it true. To every man his price! But it is a lie, a lie, and to-day proves it a lie. I am glad, though, that you go back with us first to Morsigny. Mademoiselle de Narbonne has a shrewder head than I, though I am thrice her age. She may help us in our straits. I have great faith in Mademoiselle de Narbonne."
"Mademoiselle de Narbonne?"
"Yes, Suzanne."
"But I thought she was Mademoiselle D'Orfeuil?"
Brother Paul smiled and shook his head.
"That was some jest, some whim of hers, and yet, perhaps, with a purpose behind it. Suzanne is no light-of-mind to jest just for jesting's sake. Perhaps she thought you would be more at ease at Morsigny. Nor was it an untruth. She is Suzanne D'Orfeuil de Narbonne, Monseigneur's cousin. Because of your ignorance of our tongue she had only Gaston and me to reckon with. To Gaston she was always Suzanne, and I humoured her, as why should I not? She can always make me do as she wills."
"But now?" said I blankly, and feeling as if again the bottom of my world were dropping out.
"The time for such toys is past," answered Brother Paul gravely. "It does not become my office to countenance the prolonging of a jest in the face of such issues as lie before us."
I made no reply; and he, perhaps in contemplation of these same issues, he too fell silent.
Mademoiselle D'Orfeuil de Narbonne! What a fool I had been in my condescension. How she must have laughed as she played her part from day to day; laughed at my simplicity in swallowing her mock humility, laughed at my clownish setting her at her ease, she who miscalled herself, lest Gaspard Hellewyl, the broken-fortuned country lout of Flanders, should be overawed by her greatness! Who is there has not been wise after the event when he might have been wise before? And who is there has not cursed the puppy-blindness in him that could not see what was plain before his face? Not a day had passed but the gilding of the Narbonne had shone through the homespun of the Orfeuil, and yet the glint taught me nothing.
But it might have been worse. I might have spoken more boldly, more openly, and so have given myself more frankly to her laughter. I owed her some thanks that I had not, for even my bitter heart set this to her credit, that she had never beckoned me to a fall. Her jest had not been that cruellest of jests that spoils a life for a pastime. Yes, it might have been worse, though that is cold comfort when might have been worse is elbow-neighbour to as bad as can be, and there was a kind of grim satisfaction in the knowledge that Louis would soon give me other things to think of.
Never, by day or night, was Morsigny left unsentinelled, and Mademoiselle, being warned of our coming, met us at the gate.
"Welcome home,mon coeur!" she said, having dropped, and for the last time, her little curtsey. "Hast thou had a good day? How red thy cheeks are! Monsieur Gaspard must have—oh! Monsieur, Monsieur, is the news bad? Is there to be no peace for Navarre that you are so grave? What has happened, Monsieur? Tell me, tell me!"
"Much, Mademoiselle de Narbonne, but not what you think."
"Thank God for that! And Narbonne! Ah," and frank laughter chased away the sudden seriousness. "But you are not angry at my poor little pretence? You should not be, for it was you who taught it to me. Remember how I took you for Martin."
"Mademoiselle, if I have deceived myself, I have deceived you also."
"What?" and she looked me imperiously in the eyes, "are you, after all, Martin the servant, and is the other the Gaspard Hellewyl Monsieur de Commines called friend? If that is your meaning——"
"No, no; worse than that, much worse. I am, most unhappily, that Gaspard Hellewyl, and so it is much worse than that."
As may be supposed, the grooms had led away the horses, and we four were alone, the little Count being clasped in her arms. Before she could reply, Brother Paulus intervened.
"Run to thy Marie, Gaston,mon gars; she will give thee thy bread and milk for to-night."
"Yes," said Mademoiselle, kissing him, and letting him slip to the ground. "Run away,p'tit, I shall come to thee presently."
"I think you are angry with my Monsieur Gaspard," said he; "but you must not be angry, Suzanne; he took such care of me all day. From the time you gave him the rose he has in his bonnet until now he has never let me out of reach of his arm. Kiss me, Monsieur Gaspard," and, forgetting he was a prince, with a rush he hugged me round the knees.
As I stooped over him, I thought a touch of colour rose to Mademoiselle's face, and I know it was a relief to hide my own; it is not easy at all times to keep the heart from showing through the eyes.
"Sleep sound,p'tit ami," said I, kissing him on the forehead.
When, with a bend of the knee to Brother Paul, he had gone, Mademoiselle turned to the priest.
"It is serious, then?"
"It might have been," he answered. "With anyone else than Monsieur de Helville it might have been serious beyond words, but he has saved us."
"Saved you?" I echoed. "Do you call that saving? Mademoiselle de Narbonne, I have a story to tell, and afterwards, if you will give me a night to rest the horses, Martin and I will go."
"Go? Go where?" she asked blankly.
"Whence we came."
"Yes," said Brother Paul, "to God's keeping."
"So I think," said I significantly, "to God's keeping."
Without a further question Mademoiselle led the way to the main door of Morsigny, through the great hall, and into a broad, timber-roofed chamber. It was the Justice Hall of the Count of Narbonne, and, facing the east, was already gloomy, though the sun still shone yellow on the grass.
Seating herself on the carved chair that faced the top of the table, Mademoiselle pointed to a bench beyond its angle and looked round her. From the almost black walls of dull oak glimmered in steel the wordless history of her race. Lance and sword, shield and casque, glaive and morion, told their story in dint and notch how the House of Narbonne had risen, fighting; had thriven, fighting; and fighting, held its own. Many a Gaston, many a Phoebus, many an Antony, had gone to its building, laying himself down as a foundation stone on which the fortunes of his race might rise. And never had it risen higher than at that day. No wonder Paulus had smiled at little Gaston's promise that I should marry his Suzanne. A D'Orfeuil of Narbonne, comparatively remote though she was from the direct line, was not for a homeless Hellewyl, and I, like the blind fool for which I still cursed myself, had inverted the pyramid of his thought.
Was it for that, I wondered, was it to point this difference between our fortunes that she had brought us to this room of all rooms in Morsigny? Or, more significant still, was it to say, It is here that Narbonne judges and condemns?
Mademoiselle must have understood something of what was passing in my mind, for her first words brushed aside the alternative.
"Here we can be undisturbed," she said to Paul; "and here, you know, we take counsel together. Monsieur Hellewyl, you said you had a story to tell; but before you begin, I wish to say this: I do not retract a single word spoken on the Grey Leap."
"That was your ignorance, Mademoiselle," said I; "wait, and hear me out."
"I am not afraid," she answered, "and—will you believe me?—though I am a woman, I am not curious. Tell me no more than you wish to tell."
"And that is everything."
Already she knew the story in part—how that a landless, penniless gentleman had been driven from his home like a smoked rat, how he had found a friend in Philip de Commines, and how he had come to Navarre on secret service. But I went back to the beginning and told it all over afresh, hoping vaguely that my forlorn helplessness might plead an extenuation for me.
From Plessis the story differed from what I had allowed her to believe, and stooping upon her crossed arms, she leaned towards me over the table, losing no word. Slowly, simply, I told it all, palliating nothing, and hiding one thing only; it did not seem necessary to mention Brigitta. She belonged to Solignac, and had no interest for Morsigny; but all the rest I laid bare. Once she interrupted me. It was as I told of the King's commission, the sealed letter, and how that, through little Gaston was to come that peace to Navarre for which she had so fervently prayed in the chapel in Saint Gatien.