Under the Red Robe by Stanley John Weyman (positive books to read txt) 📕

How dare you say that I am false to the hand that pays me?’

I thought that he would blench, but he did not. He stood up stiff as a poker.

‘I do not say; I ask!’ he replied, facing me squarely, and slapping his fist into his open hand to drive home his words the better. ‘I ask you whether you are playing the traitor to the Cardinal, or to these two women? It is a simple question.’

I fairly choked. ‘You impudent scoundrel!’ I said.

‘Steady, steady!’ he replied. ‘Pitch sticks where it belongs, and nowhere else. But that is enough. I see which it is, M. le Capitaine; this way a moment, by your leave.’

And in a very cavalier fashion he took his officer by the arm, and drew him into a sidewalk, leaving me to stand in the sun, bursting with anger and spleen. The gutter-bred rascal! That such a man should insult me, and with impunity! In Paris, I might have made him fight, but here it was impossible.

I was still foaming with rage when they returned.

‘We have come to a determination,’ the Lieutenant said, tugging his grey moustachios, and standing like a ramrod. ‘We shall leave you the house and Madame, and you can take your own line to find the man, for ourselves, we shall draw off our men to the village, and we shall take our line. That is all, M. le Capitaine, is it not?’

‘I think so,’ the Captain muttered, looking anywhere but at me.

‘Then we bid you good-day, Monsieur,’ the Lieutenant added, and in a moment he turned his companion round, and the two retired up the walk to the house, leaving me to look after them in a black fit of rage and incredulity.

At the first flush, there was something so offensive in the manner of their going that anger had the upper hand. I thought of the Lieutenant’s words, and I cursed him to hell with a sickening consciousness that I should not forget them in a hurry.

‘Was I playing the traitor to the Cardinal or to these women—which?’ MON DIEU! if ever question—but there, some day I would punish him. And the Captain? I could put an end to his amusement, at any rate; and I would. Doubtless among the country bucks of Auch he lorded it as a chief provincial bully, but I would cut his comb for him some fine morning behind the barracks.

And then as I grew cooler I began to wonder why they were going, and what they were going to do. They might be already on the track, or have the information they required under hand; in that case I could understand the movement. But if they were still searching vaguely, uncertain whether their quarry were in the neighbourhood or not, and uncertain how long they might have to stay, it seemed incredible that soldiers should move from good quarters to bad without motive.

I wandered down the garden, thinking sullenly of this, and pettishly cutting off the heads of the flowers with my sheathed sword. After all, if they found and arrested the man, what then? I should have to make my peace with the Cardinal as I best might. He would have gained his point, but not through me, and I should have to look to myself. On the other hand, if I anticipated them—and, as a fact, I believed that I could lay my hand on the fugitive within a few hours—there would come a time when I must face Mademoiselle.

A little while back that had not seemed so difficult a thing. From the day of our first meeting—and in a higher degree since that afternoon when she had lashed me with her scorn-my views of her, and my feelings towards her, had been strangely made up of antagonism and sympathy; of repulsion, because in her past and present she was so different from me; of yearning because she was a woman and friendless. Later I had duped her and bought her confidence by returning the jewels, and so in a measure I had sated my vengeance; then, as a consequence, sympathy had again got the better of me, until now I hardly knew my own mind, or what I felt, or what I intended. I DID NOT KNOW, in fact, what I intended. I stood there in the garden with that conviction suddenly newborn in my mind; and then, in a moment, I heard her step, and I turned to find her behind me.

Her face was like April, smiles breaking through her tears. As she stood with a tall hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see how beautiful she was.

‘I am here in search of you, M. de Barthe,’ she said, colouring slightly, perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought; ‘to thank you. You have not fought, and yet you have conquered. My woman has just been with me, and she tells me that they are going.’

‘Going?’ I said, ‘Yes, Mademoiselle, they are leaving the house.’

She did not understand my reservation.

‘What magic have you used?’ she said almost gaily; it was wonderful how hope had changed her. ‘Besides, I am curious to learn how you managed to avoid fighting.’

‘After taking a blow?’ I said bitterly.

‘Monsieur, I did not mean that,’ she said reproachfully.

But her face clouded. I saw that, viewed in this light—in which, I suppose, she had not hitherto—the matter perplexed her more than before.

I took a sudden resolution.

‘Have you ever heard, Mademoiselle,’ I said gravely, plucking off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant beside me, ‘of a gentleman by name De Berault? Known in Paris, I have heard, by the sobriquet of the Black Death?’

‘The duellist?’ she answered, looking at me in wonder. ‘Yes, I have heard of him. He killed a young gentleman of this province at Nancy two years back. ‘It was a sad story,’ she continued, shuddering slightly, ‘of a dreadful man. God keep our friends from such!’

‘Amen!’ I said quietly. But, in spite of myself, I could not meet her eyes.

‘Why?’ she answered, quickly taking alarm at; my silence. ‘What of him, M. de Barthe? Why have you mentioned him?’

‘Because he is here, Mademoiselle.’

‘Here?’ she exclaimed. ‘At Cocheforet?’

‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ I answered soberly. ‘I am he.’