Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Part 49

"Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to him.

For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under the cowl was the lover with whom Mademoiselle's thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and armed with Tavannes' note to Madame St. Lo--which the guards below knew for Count Hannibal's hand, though they were unable to decipher the contents--he had found no difficulty in making his way to her.

He had learned before he entered that Tavannes was abroad, and was aware therefore that he ran little risk. His betrothed, on the other hand, who knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw in him one who came to her at the greatest risk, across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming with blood. And though she had never embraced him save in the crisis of the ma.s.sacre, though she had never called him by his Christian name, in the joy of this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung to him weeping, she forgot for the time his defection, and thought only of him who had returned to her so gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poitou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life; and at the sight of whom the horrors of the last two days fell from her--for the moment.

And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room was a sound of weeping.

The least moved was, for a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we know, had gone through much that day. But even his heart swelled, partly with pride, partly with thankfulness that he had returned to one who loved him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he deserved; but he need not confess that now. When he had brought off the _coup_ which he had in his mind, he would hasten to forget that he had entertained other ideas.

Mademoiselle had been the first to be carried away; she was also the first to recover herself. "I had forgotten," she cried suddenly. "I had forgotten," and she wrested herself from his embrace with violence, and stood panting, her face white, her eyes affrighted. "I must not! And you--I had forgotten that too! To be here, monsieur, is the worst office you can do me. You must go! Go, monsieur, in mercy I beg of you, while it is possible. Every moment you are here, every moment you spend in this house, I shudder."

"You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of bravado. He did not understand.

"I fear for myself!" she answered. And then, wringing her hands, divided between her love for him and her fear for herself, "Oh, forgive me!" she said. "You do not know that he has promised to spare me, if he cannot produce you, and--and--a minister! He has granted me that; but I thought when you entered that he had gone back on his word, and sent a priest, and it maddened me! I could not bear to think that I had gained nothing. Now you understand, and you will pardon me, monsieur? If he cannot produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me, I beg, without a moment's delay."

He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl and squared his shoulders. "All that is over!" he said, "over and done with, sweet! M.

de Tavannes is at this moment a prisoner in the a.r.s.enal. On my way hither I fell in with M. de Biron, and he told me. The Grand Master, who would have had me join his company, had been all night at Marshal Tavannes' hotel, where he had been detained longer than he expected.

He stood pledged to release Count Hannibal on his return, but at my request he consented to hold him one hour, and to do also a little thing for me."

The glow of hope which had transfigured her face faded slowly. "It will not help," she said, "if he find you here."

"He will not! Nor you!"

"How, monsieur?"

"In a few minutes," he explained--he could not hide his exultation, "a message will come from the a.r.s.enal in the name of Tavannes, bidding the monk he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message, corroborated by my presence, should suffice: '_Bid the monk who is now with Mademoiselle_,' it will run, '_bring her to me at the a.r.s.enal, and let four pikes guard them hither_.' When I begged M. de Biron to do this, he laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. 'They shall bring one of Count Hannibal's gloves, which he left on my table. Always supposing my rascals have done him no harm, which G.o.d forbid, for I am answerable.'"

Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the meeting with Biron had suggested, could see no flaw in it. She could, and though she heard him to the end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took in not only Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman who stood at the door but the absent servants, "And what of these?" she said. "What of these? You forgot them, monsieur. You do not think, you cannot have thought, that I would abandon them? That I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated, might extend to them? No, you forgot them."

He did not know what to answer, for the jealous eyes of the frightened waiting-woman, fierce with the fierceness of a hunted animal, were on him. The Carlat and she had heard, could hear. At last, "Better one than none!" he muttered, in a voice so low that if the servants caught his meaning it was but indistinctly. "I have to think of you."

"And I of them," she answered firmly. "Nor is that all. Were they not here, it could not be. My word is pa.s.sed--though a moment ago, monsieur, in the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she continued, "if I keep not my word, can I expect him to keep his? Or how, if I am ready to break the bond, on this happening which I never expected, can I hold him to conditions which he loves as little--as little as I love him?"

Her voice dropped piteously on the last words; her eyes, craving her lover's pardon, sought his. But rage, not pity or admiration, was the feeling roused in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her, struck dumb by folly so immense. At last, "You cannot mean this," he blurted out. "You cannot mean, Mademoiselle, that you intend to stand on that! To keep a promise wrung from you by force, by treachery, in the midst of such horrors as he and his have brought upon us! It is inconceivable!"

She shook her head. "I promised," she said.

"You were forced to it."

"But the promise saved our lives."

"From murderers! From a.s.sa.s.sins!" he protested.

She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said firmly; "I cannot."

"Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in ign.o.ble anger. "That is it! Nay, you must wish to marry him! For, as for his conditions, Mademoiselle," the young man continued, with an insulting laugh, "you cannot think seriously of them. _He_ keep conditions and you in his power! He, Count Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he in the mind to keep them, what are they? There are plenty of ministers. I left one only this morning. I could lay my hand on one in five minutes. He has only to find one therefore--and to find me!"

"Yes, monsieur," she cried, trembling with wounded pride, "it is for that reason I implore you to go. The sooner you leave me, the sooner you place yourself in a position of security, the happier for me!

Every moment that you spend here, you endanger both yourself and me!"

"If you will not be persuaded----"

"I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly, "and you do but"--alas! her pride began to break down, her voice to quiver, she looked piteously at him--"by staying here make it harder for me to--to----"

"Hus.h.!.+" cried Madame Carlat, "Hus.h.!.+" And as they started and turned towards her--she was at the end of the chamber by the door, almost out of earshot--she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she muttered, "some one has entered the house."

"'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville answered sullenly. And he drew his cowl over his face, and, hiding his hands in his sleeves, moved towards the door. But on the threshold he turned and held out his arms. He could not go thus. "Mademoiselle! Clotilde!" he cried with pa.s.sion, "for the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be persuaded!"

"Hus.h.!.+" Madame Carlat interposed again, and turned a scared face on them. "It is no messenger! It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice."

And she wrung her hands. "_Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu_, what are we to do?" she continued, panic-stricken. And she looked all ways about the room.

CHAPTER XVI.

AT CLOSE QUARTERS.

Fear leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she commanded herself. She signed to Madame Carlat to be silent, and they listened, gazing at one another, hoping against hope that the woman was mistaken. A long moment they waited, and some were beginning to breathe again, when the strident tones of Count Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and put an end to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and stood supporting herself by it. "What are we to do?" she muttered. "What are we to do?" and she turned distractedly towards the women. The courage which had supported her in her lover's absence had abandoned her now.

"If he finds him here I am lost! I am lost!"

"He will not know me," Tignonville muttered. But he spoke uncertainly; and his gaze, s.h.i.+fting hither and thither, belied the boldness of his words.

Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room; on her for once the burden seemed to rest. Alas! the room had no second door, and the windows looked on a courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even now Count Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his hand was almost on the latch.

The woman wrung her hands; then, a thought striking her, she darted to a corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs against the wall.

"Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these! He may not be seen here! Quick, monsieur, quick! Hide yourself!"

It was a forlorn hope--the suggestion of one who had not thought out the position; and, whatever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted against it.

"No," she cried. "Not there!" while Tignonville, who knew that the step was useless, since Count Hannibal must have learned that a monk had entered, held his ground.

"You could not deny yourself!" he muttered hurriedly.

"And a priest with me?" she answered; and she shook her head.

There was no time for more, and even as Mademoiselle spoke Count Hannibal's knuckles tapped the door. She cast a last look at her lover. He had turned his back on the window; the light no longer fell on his face. It was possible that he might pa.s.s unrecognised, if Tavannes' stay was brief; at any rate the risk must be run. In a half-stifled voice she bade her woman, Javette, open the door.

Count Hannibal bowed low as he entered; and he deceived the others.

But he did not deceive her. He had not crossed the threshold before she repented that she had not acted on Tignonville's suggestion, and denied herself. For what could escape those hard keen eyes, which swept the room, saw all, and seemed to see nothing--those eyes in which there dwelt even now a glint of cruel humour? He might deceive others, but she who panted within his grasp, as the wild bird palpitates in the hand of the fowler, was not deceived! He saw, he knew! although, as he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he looked only at her.

"I expected to be with you before this," he said courteously, "but I have been detained. First, Mademoiselle, by some of your friends, who were reluctant to part with me; then by some of your enemies, who, finding me in no handsome case, took me for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and drove me to s.h.i.+fts to get clear of them. However, now I am come, I have news."

"News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could hardly be good news.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville," he answered. "I have little doubt that I shall be able to produce him this evening, and so to satisfy one of your scruples. And as I trust that this good father,"

he went on, turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking with the sneer from which he seldom refrained, Catholic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by this time succeeded in removing the other, and persuading you to accept his ministrations----"