Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini (best ebook reader under 100 .txt) đź“–
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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little, in what places my future life might lie. I had still a
little property by Beaugency, but scant inclination to withdraw to
it. To Paris I would not return; that much I was determined upon;
but upon no more. I had thoughts of going to Spain. Yet that
course seemed no less futile than any other of which I could bethink
me. I fell asleep at last, vowing that it would be a mercy and a
fine solution to the puzzle of how to dispose of the future if I
were to awaken no more.
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.
From my clothes they took the letters addressed to Lesperon which
that poor gentleman had entrusted to me on the night of his death;
and among these there was one from the Duc d’Orleans himself, which
would alone have sufficed to have hanged a regiment. Besides these,
they took Monsieur de Marsac’s letter of two days ago, and the
locket containing the picture of Mademoiselle de Marsac.
The papers and the portrait they delivered to the Captain, who took
them with the same air of deprecation tainted with disgust that
coloured all his actions in connection with my arrest.
To this same repugnance for his catchpoll work do I owe it that at
the moment of setting out he offered to let me ride without the
annoyance of an escort if I would pass him my parole not to attempt
an escape.
We were standing, then, in the hall of the chateau. His men were
already in the courtyard, and there were only present Monsieur le
Vicomte and Anatole - the latter reflecting the look of sorrow that
haunted his master’s face. The Captain’s generosity was certainly
leading him beyond the bounds of his authority, and it touched me.
“Monsieur is very generous,” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“Cap de Dieu!” he cried - he had a way of swearing that reminded me
of my friend Cazalet. “It is no generosity, monsieur. It is a
desire to make this obscene work more congenial to the spirit of a
gentleman, which, devil take me, I cannot stifle, not for the King
himself. And then, Monsieur de Lesperon, are we not
fellow-countrymen? Are we not Gascons both? Pardieu, there is no
more respected a name in the whole of Gascony than that of Lesperon,
and that you belong to so honourable a family
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