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

‘Except your sister,’ I said quietly.

He made a wry face. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am afraid that I must have stabbed her too, to preserve my self-respect. You are right.’ And he fell into a reverie which held him for a few minutes. Then I found him looking at me with a kind of frank perplexity that invited question.

‘What is it?’ I said.

‘You have fought a great many duels?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Did you ever strike a foul blow in one?’

‘Never,’ I answered. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, because I—wanted to confirm an impression. To be frank, M. de Berault, I seem to see in you two men.

‘Two men?’

‘Yes, two men. One, the man who captured me; the other, the man who let my friend go free to-day.’

‘It surprised you that I let him go? That was prudence, M. de Cocheforet,’ I replied. ‘I am an old gambler. I know when the stakes are too high for me. The man who caught a lion in his wolf-pit had no great catch.’

‘No, that is true,’ he answered smiling, ‘And yet—I find two men in your skin.’

‘I daresay that there are two in most men’s skins,’ I answered with a sigh. ‘But not always together. Sometimes one is there, and sometimes the other.’

‘How does the one like taking up the other’s work?’ he asked keenly.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘That is as may be,’ I said. ‘You do not take an estate without the debts.’

He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied that his thoughts had reverted to his own case. But on a sudden he looked at me again. ‘Will you answer a question, M. de Berault?’ he said winningly.

‘Perhaps,’ I replied.

‘Then tell me—it is a tale I am sure worth the telling. What was it that, in a very evil hour for me, sent you in search of me?’

‘My Lord Cardinal,’ I answered

‘I did not ask who,’ he replied drily. ‘I asked, what. You had no grudge against me?’

‘No.’

‘No knowledge of me?’

‘No.’

‘Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens! man,’ he continued bluntly, and speaking with greater freedom than he had before used, ‘Nature never intended you for a tipstaff. What was it then?’

I rose. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low.

‘I will tell you—to-morrow,’ I said. ‘I shall have something to say to you then, of which that will be part.’

He looked at me in great astonishment, and with a little suspicion. But I called for a light, and by going at once to bed, cut short his questions. In the morning we did not meet until it was time to start.

Those who know the south road to Agen, and how the vineyards rise in terraces north of the town, one level of red earth above another, green in summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, may remember a particular place where the road, two leagues from the town, runs up a steep hill. At the top of the hill four roads meet; and there, plain to be seen against the sky, is a finger-post indicating which way leads to Bordeaux, and which to old tiled Montauban, and which to Perigueux.

This hill had impressed me greatly on my journey south; perhaps because I had enjoyed from it my first extended view of the Garonne Valley, and had there felt myself on the verge of the south country where my mission lay. It had taken root in my memory, so that I had come to look upon its bare rounded head, with the guide-post and the four roads, as the first outpost of Paris, as the first sign of return to the old life.

Now for two days I had been looking forward to seeing it again, That long stretch of road would do admirably for something I had in my mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing north, south, east, and west—could there be a better place for meetings and partings?

We came to the bottom of the ascent about an hour before noon, M. de Cocheforet, Mademoiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of yesterday, and I rode ahead; they came after at their leisure. Now, at the foot of the hill I stopped, and letting Mademoiselle pass on, detained M. de Cocheforet by a gesture.

‘Pardon me, one moment,’ I said. ‘I want to ask a favour.’

He looked at me somewhat fretfully; with a gleam of wildness in his eyes that betrayed how the iron was, little by little, eating into his heart. He had started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom, but gradually he had sunk below himself; and now he had much ado to curb his impatience.

‘Of me?’ he said bitterly. ‘What is it?’

‘I wish to have a few words with Mademoiselle—alone,’ I said.

‘Alone?’ he exclaimed in astonishment.

‘Yes,’ I replied, without blenching, though his face grew dark. ‘For the matter of that, you can be within call all the time, if you please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride a little way with her.’

‘To tell her something?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you can tell it to me,’ he retorted suspiciously. ‘Mademoiselle, I will answer for it, has no desire to—’

‘See me or speak to me? No,’ I said. ‘I can understand that. Yet I want to speak to her.’

‘Very well, you can speak in my presence,’ he answered rudely. ‘If that be all, let us ride on and join her.’ And he made a movement as if to do so.

‘That will not do, M. de Cocheforet,’ I said firmly, stopping him with my hand. ‘Let me beg you to be more complaisant. It is a small thing I ask, a very small thing; but I swear to you that if Mademoiselle does not grant it, she will repent it all her life.’

He looked at me, his face growing darker and darker.

‘Fine words,’ he said, with a sneer. ‘Yet I fancy I understand them.’ And then with a passionate oath he broke out. ‘But I will not have it! I have not been blind, M. de Berault, and I understand. But I will not have it. I will have no such Judas bargain made. PARDIEU! do you think I could suffer it and show my face again?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, restraining myself with difficulty. I could have struck the fool.