I was, however, destined to be roused again just as the veil of night was being lifted and the chill breath of dawn was upon the world. There was a loud knocking at the gates of Lavedan, confused noises of voices, of pattering feet, of doors opening and closing within the chateau.
There was a rapping at my chamber door, and when I went to open, I found the Vicomte on the threshold, nightcapped, in his shirt, and bearing a lighted taper.
“There are troopers at the gate!” he exclaimed as he entered the room. “That dog Saint-Eustache has already been at work!”
For all the agitation that must have been besetting him, his manner was serene as ever. “What are we to do?” he asked.
“You are admitting them – naturally?” said I, inquiry in my voice.
“Why, yes”; and he shrugged his shoulders. “What could it avail us to resist them? Even had I been prepared for it, it would be futile to attempt to suffer a siege.”
I wrapped a dressing-gown about me, for the morning air was chill.
“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said I gravely, “I heartily deplore that Monsieur de Marsac’s affairs should have detained me here. But for him, I had left Lavedan two days ago. As it is, I tremble for you, but we may at least hope that my being taken in your house will draw down no ill results upon you. I shall never forgive myself if through my having taken refuge here I should have encompassed your destruction.”
“There is no question of that,” he replied, with the quick generosity characteristic of the man. “This is the work of Saint-Eustache. Sooner or later I always feared that it would happen, for sooner or later he and I must have come to enmity over my daughter. That knave had me in his power. He knew – being himself outwardly one of us – to what extent I was involved in the late rebellion, and I knew enough of him to be assured that if some day he should wish to do me ill, he would never scruple to turn traitor. I am afraid, Monsieur de Lesperon, that it is not for you alone – perhaps not for you at all – that the soldiers have come, but for me.”
Then, before I could answer him, the door was flung wide, and into the room, in nightcap and hastily donned robe – looking a very megere in that disfiguring deshabille – swept the Vicomtesse.
“See,” she cried to her husband, her strident voice raised in reproach – “see to what a pass you have brought us!”
“Anne, Anne!” he exclaimed, approaching her and seeking to soothe her; “be calm, my poor child, and be brave.”
But, evading him, she towered, lean and malevolent as a fury.
“Calm?” she echoed contemptuously. “Brave?” Then a short laugh broke from her – a despairing, mocking, mirthless expression of anger. “By God, do you add effrontery to your other failings? Dare you bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I been warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past, that, after disregarding me and deriding my warnings, you should bid me be calm now that my fears are realized?”
There was a sound of creaking gates below. The Vicomte heard it.
“Madame,” he said, putting aside his erstwhile tender manner, and speaking with a lofty dignity, “the troopers have been admitted. Let me entreat you to retire. It is not befitting our station–”
“What is our station?” she interrupted harshly. “Rebels – proscribed, houseless beggars. That is our station, thanks to you and your insane meddling with treason. What is to become of us, fool? What is to become of Roxalanne and me when they shall have hanged you and have driven us from Lavedan? By God’s death, a fine season this to talk of the dignity of our station! Did I not warn you, malheureux, to leave party faction alone? You laughed at me.”
“Madame, your memory does me an injustice,” he answered in a strangled voice. “I never laughed at you in all my life.”
“You did as much, at least. Did you not bid me busy myself with women’s affairs? Did you not bid me leave you to follow your own judgment? You have followed it – to a pretty purpose, as God lives! These gentlemen of the King’s will cause you to follow it a little farther,” she pursued, with heartless, loathsome sarcasm. “You will follow it as far as the scaffold at Toulouse. That, you will tell me, is your own affair. But what provision have you made for your wife and daughter? Did you marry me and get her to leave us to perish of starvation? Or are we to turn kitchen wenches or sempstresses for our livelihood?”
With a groan, the Vicomte sank down upon the bed, and covered his face with his hands.
“God pity me!” he cried, in a voice of agony – an agony such as the fear of death could never have infused into his brave soul; an agony born of the heartlessness of this woman who for twenty years had shared his bed and board, and who now in the hour of his adversity failed him so cruelly – so tragically.
“Aye,” she mocked in her bitterness, “call upon God to pity you, for I shall not.”
She paced the room now, like a caged lioness, her face livid with the fury that possessed her. She no longer asked questions; she no longer addressed him; oath followed oath from her thin lips, and the hideousness of this woman’s blasphemy made me shudder. At last there were heavy steps upon the stairs, and, moved by a sudden impulse “Madame,” I cried, “let me prevail upon you to restrain yourself.”
She swung round to face me, her dose-set eyes ablaze with anger.
“Sangdieu! By what right do you–” she began but this was no time to let a woman’s tongue go babbling on; no time for ceremony; no season for making a leg and addressing her with a simper. I caught her viciously by the wrist, and with my face close up to hers “Folle!” I cried, and I’ll swear no man had ever used the word to her before. She gasped and choked in her surprise and rage. Then lowering my voice lest it should reach the approaching soldiers: “Would you ruin the Vicomte and yourself?” I muttered. Her eyes asked me a question, and I answered it. “How do you know that the soldiers have come for your husband? It may be that they are seeking me – and only me. They may know nothing of the Vicomte’s defection. Shall you, then, be the one to inform them of it by your unbridled rantings and your accusations?”
Her jaw fell open in astonishment. This was a side of the question she had not considered.
“Let me prevail upon you, madame, to withdraw and to be of good courage. It is more than likely that you alarm yourself without cause.”
She continued to stare at me in her amazement and the confusion that was congenital with it, and if there was not time for her to withdraw, at least the possibility I had suggested acted as a timely warning.
In that moment the door opened again, and on the threshold appeared a young man in a plumed hat and corselet, carrying a naked sword in one hand and a lanthorn in the other. Behind him I caught the gleam of steel from the troopers at his heels.
“Which of you is Monsieur Rene de Lesperon?” he inquired politely, his utterance flavoured by a strong Gascon accent.
I stood forward. “I am known by that name, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said I.
He looked at me wistfully, apologetically almost, then “In the King’s name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I call upon you to yield!” said he.
“I have been expecting you. My sword is yonder, monsieur,” I replied suavely. “If you will allow me to dress, I shall be ready to accompany you in a few minutes.”
He bowed, and it at once became clear that his business at Lavedan was – as I had suggested to the Vicomtesse might be possible – with me alone.
“I am grateful for the readiness of your submission,” said this very polite gentleman. He was a comely lad, with blue eyes and a good-humoured mouth, to which a pair of bristling moustaches sought vainly to impart an expression of ferocity.
“Before you proceed to dress, monsieur, I have another duty to discharge.”
“Discharge your duty, monsieur,” I answered. Whereupon he made a sign to his men, and in a moment they were ransacking my garments and effects. While this was taking place, he turned to the Vicomte and Vicomtesse, and offered them a thousand apologies for having interrupted their slumbers, and for so rudely depriving them of their guest. He advanced in his excuse the troublous nature of the times, and threw in a bunch of malisons at the circumstances which forced upon soldiers the odious duties of the tipstaff, hoping that we would think him none the less a gentleman for the unsavoury business upon which he was engaged.