Lord Tony's Wife (6 page)

‘Yes. I have heard of it,’ remarked the other curtly.

‘He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty–Carrier’s agents—you know them–explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire and then up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to obstruct the passage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Sιcherie. She saw the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two and and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing they didn’t like was being searched. Some had managed to screte silver ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and such like. They didn’t like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and they didn’t want much of that seeing whither they were going. Foucaud made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He’ll learn the way to one of Carrier’s barges too one day, I’ll bet.’

He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole appearance had become transfigured while he spoke. Gone was the urbane manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of circumstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin—envoy of the Republic at the Court of St. James’—had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent shoulders, in the rigidity of the attitude, in the large, square hands tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an intentness that was almost painful.

‘I was at the woman Pichot’s tavern that night,’ resumed Chauvelin after a while. ‘I saw the barge–a moving coffin, what?–gliding down stream towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery at La Samaritaine challenged her as she passed, for Carrier had prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice. Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O’Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery challenged them once more. However, they had some sort of written authorization from Carrier, for they were allowed to pass. Vailly remained on guard. He saw the barge glide further down stream. It seems that the moon at the time was hidden by a cloud. But the night was not dark and Vailly watched the barge till she was out of sight. She was towed past Trentemoult and Chantenay into the wide reach of the river just below Chevirι where, as you know, the Loire is nearly two thousand feet wide.’

Once more he paused, looking down with grim amusement on the bent shoulders of the other man.

‘Well?’

Chauvelin laughed. The query sounded choked and hoarse, whether through horror, excitement or mere impatient curiosity it were impossible to say.

‘Well!’ he retorted with a careless shrug of the shoulders. ‘I was too far up stream to see anything and Vailly saw nothing either. But he heard. So did others who happened to be on the shore close by.’

‘What did they hear?’

‘The hammering,’ replied Chauvelin curtly, ‘when the portholes were knocked open to let in the flood of water. And the screams and yells of five and twenty drowning priests.’

‘Not one of them escaped, I suppose?’

‘Not one.’

Once more Chauvelin laughed. He had a way of laughing—just like that–in a peculiar mirthless, derisive manner, as if with joy at another man’s discomfiture, at another’s material or moral downfall. There is only one language in the world which has a word to express that type of mirth; the word is Schadenfreude.

It was Chauvelin’s turn to triumph now. He had distinctly perceived the signs of an inward shudder which had gone right through Martin-Roget’s spine: he had also perceived through the man’s bent shoulders, his silence, his rigidity that his soul was filled with horror at the story of that abominable crime which he—Chauvelin—had so blandly retailed and that he was afraid to show the horror which he felt. And the man who is afraid can never climb the ladder of success above the man who is fearless.

IV

There was silence in the low raftered room for awhile: silence only broken by the crackling and sizzling of damp logs in the hearth, and the tap-tapping of a loosely fastened shutter which sounded weird and ghoulish like the knocking of ghosts against the window-frame. Martin-Roget bending still closer to the fire knew that Chauvelin was watching him and that Chauvelin had triumphed, for–despite failure, despite humiliation and disgrace—that man’s heart and will had never softened: he had remained as merciless, as fanatical, as before and still looked upon every sign of pity and humanity for a victim of that bloody revolution—which was his child, the thing of his creation, yet worshipped by him, its creator—as a crime against patriotism and against the Republic.

And Martin-Roget fought within himself lest something he might say or do, a look, a gesture should give the other man an indication that the horrible account of a hideous crime perpetrated against twenty-five defenceless men had roused a feeling of unspeakable horror in his heart. That was the punishment of these callous makers of a ruthless revolution—that was their hell upon earth, that they were doomed to hate and to fear one another; every man feeling that the other’s hand was up against him as it had been against law and order, against the guilty and the innocent, the rebel and the defenceless; every man knowing that the other was always there on the alert, ready to pounce like a beast of prey upon any victim—friend, comrade, brother—who came within reach of his hand.

Like many men stronger than himself, Pierre Adet–or Martin-Roget as he now called himself—had been drawn into the vortex of bloodshed and of tyranny out of which now he no longer had the power to extricate himself. Nor had he any wish to extricate himself. He had too many past wrongs to avenge, too much injustice on the part of Fate and Circumstance to make good, to wish to draw back now that a newly-found power had been placed in the hands of men such as he through the revolt of an entire people. The sickening sense of horror which a moment ago had caused him to shudder and to turn away in loathing from Chauvelin was only like the feeble flicker of a light before it wholly dies down—the light of something purer, early lessons of childhood, former ideals, earlier aspirations, now smothered beneath the passions of revenge and of hate.

And he would not give Chauvelin the satisfaction of seeing him wince. He was himself ashamed of his own weakness. He had deliberately thrown in his lot with these men and he was determined not to fall a victim to their denunciations and to their jealousies. So now he made a great effort to pull himself together, to bring back before his mind those memory-pictures of past tyranny and oppression which had effectually killed all sense of pity in his heart, and it was in a tone of perfect indifference which gave no loophole to Chauvelin’s sneers that he asked after awhile:

‘And was citizen Carrier altogether pleased with the result of his patriotic efforts?’

‘Oh, quite!’ replied the other. ‘He has no one’s orders to take. He is proconsul—virtual dictator in Nantes: and he has vowed that he will purge the city from all save its most deserving citizens. The cargo of priests was followed by one of malefactors, night-birds, cut-throats and such like. That is where Carrier’s patriotism shines out in all its glory. It is not only priests and aristos, you see—other miscreants are treated with equal fairness.’

‘Yes! I see he is quite impartial,’ remarked Martin-Roget coolly.

‘Quite,’ retorted Chauvelin, as he once more sat down in the ingle-nook. And, leaning his elbows upon his knees he looked straight and deliberately into the other man’s face, and added slowly: ‘You will have no cause to complain of Carrier’s want of patriotism when you hand over your bag of birds to him.’

This time Martin-Roget had obviously winced, and Chauvelin had the satisfaction of seeing that his thrust had gone home: though Martin-Roget’s face was in shadow, there was something now in his whole attitude, in the clasping and unclasping of his large, square hands which indicated that the man was labouring under the stress of a violent emotion. In spite of this he managed to say quite coolly: ‘What do you mean exactly by that, citizen Chauvelin?’

‘Oh!’ replied the other, ‘you know well enough that I mean–I am no fool, what?…or the Revolution would have no use for me. If after my many failures she still commands my services and employs me to keep my eyes and ears open, it is because she knows that she can count on me. I do keep my eyes and ears open, citizen Adet or Marin-Roget, whatever you like to call yourself, and also my mind–and I have a way of putting two and two together to make four. There are few people in Nantes who do not know that old Jean Adet, the miller, was hanged four years ago, because his son Pierre had taken part in some kind of open revolt against the tyranny of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan, and was not there to take his punishment himself. I knew old Jean Adet…I was on the Place du Bouffay at Nantes when he was hanged…’

But already Martin-Roget had jumped to his feet with a muttered blasphemy.

‘Have done, man,’ he said roughly, ‘have done!’

And he started pacing up and down the narrow room like a caged panther, snarling and showing his teeth, whilst his rough, toil-worn hands quivered with the desire to clutch an unseen enemy by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him. ‘Think you,’ he added hoarsely, ‘that I need reminding of that?’

‘No. I do not think that, citizen,’ replied Chauvelin calmly, ‘I only desired to warn you.’

‘Warn me? Of what?’

Nervous, agitated, restless, Martin-Roget had once more gone back to his seat: his hands were trembling as he held them up mechanically to the blaze and his face was the colour of lead. In contrast with his restlessness Chauvelin appeared the more calm and bland.

‘Why should you wish to warn me?’ asked the other querulously, but with an attempt at his former overbearing manner. ‘What are my affairs to you–what do you know about them?’

‘Oh, nothing, nothing, citizen Martin-Roget,’ replied Chauvelin pleasantly, ‘I was only indulging the fancy I spoke to you about just now of putting two and two together in order to make four. The chartering of a smuggler’s craft–aristos on board her—her ostensible destination Holland—her real objective Le Croisic… Le Croisic is now the port for Nantes and we don’t bring aristos into Nantes these days for the object of providing them with a feather-bed and a competence, what?’

‘And,’ retorted Martin-Roget quietly, ‘if your surmises are correct, citizen Chauvelin, what then?’

‘Oh, nothing!’ replied the other indifferently. ‘Only…take care, citizen…that is all.’

‘Take care of what?’

‘Of the man who brought me, Chauvelin, to ruin and disgrace.’

‘Oh! I have heard of that legend before now,’ said Martin-Roget with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. ‘The man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel you mean?’

‘Why, yes!’

‘What have I to do with him?’

‘I don’t know. But remember that I myself have twice been after that man here in England; that twice he slipped through my fingers when I thought I held him so tightly that he could not possibly escape and that twice in consequence I was brought to humiliation and to shame. I am a marked man now—the guillotine will soon claim me for her future use. Your affairs, citizen, are no concern of mine, but I have marked that Scarlet Pimpernel for mine own. I won’t have any blunderings on your part give him yet another triumph over us all.’

Once more Martin-Roget swore one of his favourite oaths.

‘By Satan and all his brood, man,’ he cried in a passion of fury, ‘have done with this interference. Have done, I say. I have nothing to do, I tell you, with your satanι Scarlet Pimpernel. My concern is with…’

‘With the duc de Kernogan,’ broke in Chauvelin calmly, ‘and with his daughter; I know that well enough. You want to be even with them over the murder of your father. I know that too. All that is your affair. But beware, I tell you. To being with, the secrecy of your identity is absolutely essential to the success of your plan. What?’

‘Of course it is. But…’

‘But nevertheless, your identity is known to the most astute, the keenest enemy of the Republic.’

‘Impossible,’ asserted Martin-Roget hotly.

‘The duc de Kernogan…?’

‘Bah! He had never the slightest suspicion of me. Think you his High and Mightiness in those far-off days ever looked twice at a village lad so that he would know him again four years later? I came into this country as an ιmigrι stowed away in a smuggler’s ship like a bundle of contraband goods. I have papers to prove that my name is Martin-Roget and that I am a banker from Brest. The worthy bishop of Brest—denounced to the Commitee of Public Safety for treason against the Republic—was given his life and a safe conduct into Spain on the condition that he gave me–Martin-Roget—letters of personal introduction to various high-born ιmigrιs in Holland, in Germany and in England. Armed with these I am invulnerable. I have been presented to His Royal Highness the Regent, and to the ιlite of English society in Bath. I am the friend of M. le duc de Kernogan now and the accredited suitor for his daughter’s hand.’