Scaramouche (36 page)

"What do I mean?" he answered slowly, a crooked smile on his full sensuous lips. "I mean, Aline, that the fate of Toulon, the fate of the royalist cause itself is in your hands at this moment. Let that prove to you the depth of my sincerity."

She drew nearer by a step. Her breath quickened. "Oh, you are mad!" she cried. "Mad! You are a prince, the representative of France. Will you allow a whim, a caprice, to make you false to your duty, false to those brave souls who count upon you, who are exposing their lives for you and your house?"

She had come so near to him in her intentness that he was scarcely under the necessity of moving so as to place his left arm round her. He drew her close. Passively she suffered it, listening for his reply, so engrossed in it perhaps as scarcely to be conscious of what he did, or, at least, scarcely caring.

"At need I will do no less," he answered her. "What do I care for anything in this world compared with the care I have for you? My conduct shall prove it. I'll throw away the chances of a throne at need, to show you how little a thing is a throne to me when set against your love, Aline."

"Ah, but you must not. You must not! Oh, this is madness."

She struggled within the coil of his arm. But it was a feeble protesting struggle, very different from that masterful wrench with which earlier she had disengaged herself. "Do you mean that you will not go to Toulon?" There was a horror in her voice as she asked the question.

"That is what I mean, at need. It is in your hands, Aline."

"How in my hands? How in my hands? What are you saying? Why will you put this thing—this dreadful thing—upon me?"

"To afford you the proof you need."

"I need no proof. You owe me no proof of anything. There is nothing between us to be proved. Nothing. Let me go, monseigneur! Ah, let me go!"

"Why so I will, if you insist." But he held her firmly to him. His face was within an inch or two of her own, so white and piteous, so distractingly lovely. "But first hear me, and understand me. I will not go to Toulon—I take oath here that I will not go—that I will not leave Hamm—unless I have assurance of your love, unless I have proof of it, my Aline; proof of it, do you understand?"

As he ended his right arm went round her to reinforce his left, he drew her closer still against him, and his lips descended upon hers and held them.

Under that kiss she shivered, and thereafter lay limp in his embrace. Thus for a few heart-beats she suffered him to hold her, and in that time her thoughts travelled far down the past and far into the future, for thought knows naught of time and is not to be held within its narrow confines. André-Louis, her lover, the man for whom she would have kept herself, and to keep herself for whom none could ever have robbed her of her strength, had been dead these six months. She had mourned him, and she had entered into the resignation without which life on earth would be unbearable to so many. But something had gone from her which had left her without definite orientation. What did she matter now? To whom could she matter ever again? If this gross Prince desired her; if his desire of her pushed him to such mad lengths that unless he had his way he would betray those of her class and blood who depended upon him, then for their sake, for the sake of her loyalties, for the sake of all that she had been reared to reverence let her sacrifice herself.

Thus, in some nebulous way, during that dreadful moment of his embrace, did her thoughts travel. And then she grew conscious of a sound behind and beyond him. For a moment thereafter his arms continued to enfold her, his lips still pressed her own which were so cold and unresponsive, suffering him in such deadly indifference to have his will upon them. Then he, too, became aware of that movement. He broke away from her abruptly, and turned.

The door had opened, and on the threshold two gentlemen stood at gaze. They were the Comte d'Entragues and the Marquis de La Guiche. The Count's mobile countenance wore a faint, cynical smile of complete understanding. The Marquis, spurred and booted and splashed from travelling, looked on with a black scowl on his hawk-face. And it was he who spoke, his voice harsh and rasping, void of all the deference in which royalty is to be addressed.

"We interrupt you, monseigneur. But it is necessary. The matter is urgent, and cannot wait."

The Regent, at a disadvantage, sought to array himself in frosty dignity. But in such an emergency his figure did not assist the operation. He achieved pompousness.

"What is this, messieurs? How dare you break in upon me?"

D'Entragues presented his companion and his explanations in a breath. "This is Monsieur le Marquis de La Guiche, monseigneur. He has just arrived in Hamm. He is from Toulon with urgent messages."

He might have said more, but the furious Regent gave him no time.

"There is no urgency can warrant such an intrusion when I am private. Am I become of no account?"

It was the Marquis de la Guiche who answered him, his voice stingingly incisive. "I begin to think so, monseigneur."

"What's that?" The Regent could not believe that he heard correctly. "What did you say?"

La Guiche, dominant, masterful, his face wicked with anger, ignored the question.

"The matter that brings me cannot wait."

The Regent, in increasing unbelief, looked down his nose at him. "You are insolent. You do not know your place. You will wait upon my convenience, sir."

But the other's voice, growing more harshly vibrant, flung back at him: "I wait upon the convenience of the royalist cause, monseigneur. Its fate is in the balance, and delays may wreck it. That is why I insisted with Monsieur d'Entragues that he should bring me to you instantly wherever you might be." And without more, contemptuous, peremptory, he aided the question: "Will you hear me here, or will you come with us?"

The Regent gave him a long arrogant stare before which the other's intrepid glance never wavered. Then his highness waved him out with one of his plump white hands.

"Go, sir. I follow."

De La Guiche bowed stiffly and went, d'Entragues accompanying him and closing the door.

The Regent, white and trembling, turned again to Mademoiselle de Kercadiou. There was a black rage in his heart. But he mastered it to speak to her.

"I will return presently, child," he promised her. "Presently."

He took his strutting way to the door, leaving his cloak where it lay.

Dazed with fear and shame, for she had read the thoughts of La Guiche as if they had been printed on his face, she watched Monsieur depart. She stood, with one hand clutching at her heaving bosom, until his footsteps, accompanied by those of his two companions, had faded on the stairs. Then she span round, went down on her knees by a chair, and burying her face in her hands lay there convulsed by sobs.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE CANDID MARQUIS

Monsieur was trembling from head to foot when he stepped out of that room on the first floor of the Bear Inn. He was at once racked by chagrin at the inopportuneness of the interruption and swept by anger at the manner of it.

On the gallery he found the two gentlemen awaiting him. D'Entragues lounged against the rail. La Guiche stood tense. He too, was trembling. But it was with anger only. Hot-tempered, downright, this intrepid soldier, with his contempt of courts, was the bearer of a message of some peremptoriness which he did not now intend to soften.

In the moment of waiting for the Regent to follow them, the Marquis had looked with flaming eyes at d'Entragues.

"So it is true, then!" he had said in deepest bitterness. D'Entragues had shrugged, cynical ever in words as in smile. "What is there to grow hot about?"

La Guiche's glance of contempt had been as a blow. Beyond that he made no answer. He disdained to waste words on this fribble. He would save what he had to say for the Prince.

And now the Prince stood before them, his big face white, his glance one of haughty annoyance.

In the common-room, which the gallery overlooked, some townsfolk sat over their cards and backgammon. The interview could not take place here within public earshot. This Monsieur at once perceived, despite his disordered condition.

"Follow me," he commanded, and led the way down the stairs.

The landlord ushered them presently into a little room on the ground floor, lighted candles from the taper which he carried, and left them.

And now the Regent, shaking himself like a turkey-cock and puffing out his chest, prepared to loose upon them his displeasure.

"It seems that I am come so low that even my privacy is to be invaded; that there are even gentlemen of birth so indifferent to the respect that is due to my person as not to hesitate to thrust themselves upon me without leave. I will reserve what else I have to say until I hear your explanations."

La Guiche did not keep him waiting. He answered him contemptuously.

"You may not consider it worth saying, monseigneur, when you have heard. The explanations are abundant, and I warn you that they are not pleasant."

"It would surprise me if they were." The Prince actually sneered. His ill-humour vented itself blindly, as does ever the ill-humour of a stupid man. "I have almost abandoned hope of hearing any news that is not unpleasant; so ill-served am I.

"Ill-served!" The Marquis went white to the lips. His eyes blazed. In that hour no taunt could more effectively have inflamed him, and he cast to the winds the last vestige of respect for the august person he addressed. "Ill-served does your highness say? My God!" An instant he paused. Then he plunged recklessly into his report. "I am from Toulon, which declared for you, declared for the King three months ago. Ever since we raised the royal standard there our strength has grown. The royalists of the, Midi have flocked to us; even some who were not royalists, but whom the fall of the Girondins has exasperated against the present government, have come to join us. The English fleet under Admiral Hood is there, and troops have come to our support from Spain and from Sardinia. From Toulon it was our chance to raise the South, to stir it to a movement that would have swept France clear of her revolution.

"To accomplish this, to awaken enthusiasm, to stiffen courage, we required the presence there of one of the Princes of the Blood; of yourself, monseigneur, who are the representative of France, the virtual head of the house for which we are fighting. The demonstration of our devotion should have sufficed to bring you to us. When it did not, we sent messenger after messenger to you, to invite you, to implore you, almost to command you, to assume your proper place at our head. As weeks passed and grew into months, and still neither your own sense of what was fitting nor our intercessions could move you, our courage began to dwindle. Men began to ask themselves how could it happen that a Prince of the Blood could be so negligent of his duty to men who were offering up their lives out of their sense of duty to him."

Violently the Regent interrupted him. "Monsieur! You transcend all tolerable terms. I will not listen to you until you choose to address me with a proper deference. I will not listen to you."

"By God, you shall, if they are the last words I ever speak." The Marquis stood between the Regent and the door, and so commanded the situation physically. His anger gave him command of it morally as well.

"Monsieur d'Entragues, I appeal to you," cried the Prince. "To your duty to me."

The embarrassment in which Monsieur d'Entragues had listened to La Guiche's unmeasured terms was painfully increased by this appeal.

"What can I do, monseigneur, if—"

"Nothing. You can do nothing," the Marquis harshly assured him. "Nothing except be silent."

The Regent took a step forward. The sweat gleamed on his white face. He made an imperious gesture. "Let me pass, monsieur. I will listen to no more to-night. To-morrow if you are in a better frame of mind I may receive you."

"To-morrow, monseigneur, I shall be gone. I ride again at dawn. I am on my way to Brussels, in the service of your House and your cause. So you must hear me to-night. For I have that to say which you must know."

"My God, Monsieur de La Guiche! You have the temerity to do me violence. To constrain me."

"I have a duty, monseigneur," the Marquis thundered, and he swept on. "You are to know that in the last month rumours have been growing in Toulon which do not flatter you; they have reached a pitch at which they threaten jeopardy to your cause."

"Rumours, sir?" The Regent was arrested. "What rumours?"

"It is being said that you continue absent because, whilst yonder in the South men faint and bleed and die for you, you are kept here by a woman; that you are concerned only with the unworthy pursuit of gallantry; that—"

"By God, sir! I'll not endure another instant of this...this outrage. The infamous lie!"

"Lie!" echoed the Marquis. "Do you say it is a lie, monseigneur? Do you say it to me, who have just come upon you in the arms of your wench?"

"D'Entragues!" The name came in a scream from the Regent's twisted lips. "Will you suffer this? Will you suffer this insult to your Prince? Compel this man to let me pass. I will not stay another instant. And I shall not forget this, Monsieur de La Guiche. Be sure that I shall not forget it."

"I desire you to remember it, monseigneur," he was fiercely answered.

And now d'Entragues bestirred himself. He stepped forward. "Monsieur le Marquis," he began, and set a hand upon La Guiche's shoulder. He was suffered to say no more. With a violent sweep of his left arm the Marquis sent him hurtling backwards until he brought up breathless against the wall.

"A moment, and I've done. I come to you, monseigneur, from the Comte de Maudet, who commands in Toulon, as you should know. His instructions were precise. I was to see you in person, and tell you in person what is being said. I was to bid you, not on the grounds of duty, but on the grounds of honour, to attempt even at this late hour to still these rumours and repair the harm to your cause by rendering yourself at once to Toulon before it is too late; before in sheer lassitude, and despondency of fighting for one who shows so little disposition to fight for himself, those loyal men throw down their arms.

"I have done, monseigneur. This is the last summons you will receive. Even at this late hour your appearance in Toulon may revive fainting spirits and give the lie to a dishonouring rumour which it breaks my heart to know for the truth. Goodnight, monseigneur."

Abruptly he turned and stepped to the door. He pulled it open. The Regent, shaking, gasping, sweating, looked at him balefully.

"Be sure that I shall not forget a word of this, Monsieur le Marquis."

The Marquis bowed, his lips tight, passed out, and closed the door.

Stepping into the common-room, he almost stepped into the arms of the landlord, whom the raised voices had attracted to the neighbourhood.

Curtly he desired to be conducted to the chamber appointed to him for the night. There as curtly he desired to be called early, and on that cut short the landlord's solicitude for his comfort. But as the landlord was departing, the Marquis stayed him.

"What is the name of the lady in that room where I found his highness?"

"That is Mademoiselle de Kercadiou."

The Marquis echoed the name, "Kercadiou!" Then he asked: "How long has she been here? Here in Hamm?"

"Why, she arrived here from Coblentz at the same time as his highness."

The Marquis shrugged disgustedly, and on that dismissed the subject and the landlord.

Meanwhile the withdrawal of the Marquis had momentarily increased the Regent's fury. As the door closed he had swung to his remaining companion.

"D'Entragues! Will you suffer that ruffian to depart so?"

D'Entragues, almost as pale and shaken as his master by the storm through which they had passed, was making for the door when the Regent checked him.

"Stay! Wait! What does it matter? Let him go. Let him go." He shook limp hands at the end of his raised arms. "What does it matter? What does anything matter?" He reeled to a chair, and sagged down into it. He mopped his brow. He whimpered inarticulately. "Am I never to reach the bottom of this cup of bitterness? Is this plague of sansculottism so widespread that even men of birth forget their duty? What am I, d'Entragues? Am I a Prince of the Blood, or just a child of the soil, an enfant de roture? That a man, a gentleman born, should have been such a scoundrel as to stand before my face and utter such things! D'Entragues, it is the end of the world. The end of the world!"

He whimpered again. Body bowed in dejected collapse, arms hanging limp between his knees, he sat there and wagged his great head. After a while he spoke without looking up.

"Go, d'Entragues. You were of little use when there was anything to be done. Nothing remains now. Go. Leave me."

The Count, glad to escape an atmosphere of so much discomfort, mumbled "Monseigneur!" and took his departure, closing the door softly.

The Regent sat on. Every now and then he uttered a long shuddering sigh, provoked by the memory of the terrible indignity he had suffered, by contemplation of a plight so sad that he was no longer sheltered from insult.

At long length he rose, ponderously, wearily. He stood in thought, his chin in his hand. His breathing grew steady, his heart-beats normal again. He began to recover his composure. Confidence returned. It would not always be thus. God would never permit a Prince of the Blood to live out his life in such circumstances. And when sanity was restored to the world, and each man was returned to his proper place in it, the Marquis de La Guiche should be fittingly schooled in duty and be made to pay for, his presumption.

It was a heartening reflection. It made him square his shoulders, raise his head again, and resume his normal princely carriage. And it must have brought back to him the memory of that interview above-stairs so brutally interrupted in so very promising a moment. For quite suddenly, with a shrug that seemed to cast off every preoccupation, he quitted the room, crossed the outer chamber, and once more ascended the stairs.

The landlord, watching him with curiously speculative eyes, observed that he trod lightly. He continued to watch him until he had entered the apartments of Monsieur de Kercadiou. Then with a shrug the landlord went to snuff the candles.