The Abbess Of Vlaye
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But the girl who shared with Bonne the tragedy of the moment had something to say. Slowly the Countess stood up. Timid she was, but she had the full pride of her race, and shame had been her portion since the discovery of the thing Bonne had done to save her. The smart of the Abbess's fingers still burned her cheek and seared her pride. Here, Heaven-sent, as it seemed, was the opportunity of redressing the wrong which she had done to Bonne and of setting herself right with the woman who had outraged her.
The price which she must pay, the costliness of the sacrifice did not weigh with her at this moment, as it would weigh with her when her blood was cool. To save Bonne's lover stood for something; to assert herself in the eyes of those who had seen her insulted and scorned stood for much.
"No," she said with simple dignity. "There is something more to be said, M. le Vicomte. If it be a question of M. des Ageaux' life, I will go to the Captain of Vlaye."
"You will go?" the Vicomte cried, astounded. "You, mademoiselle?"
"Yes," she replied slowly, and with a little hardening of her childish features. "I will go. Not willingly, God knows! But rather than M. des Ageaux should die, I will go."
They cried out upon her, those most loudly who were least interested in her decision. But the one for whose protest she listened-Roger-was silent. She marked that; for she was a woman, and Roger's timid attentions had not passed unnoticed, nor, it may be, unappreciated. And the Abbess was silent. She, whose heart this latest proof of her lover's infidelity served but to harden, she whose soul revolted from the possibility that the deed which she had done to separate Vlaye from the Countess might cast the girl into his arms, was silent in sheer rage. Into far different arms had she thought to cast the Countess! Now, if this were to be the end of her scheme, the devil had indeed mocked her!
Nor did Bonne speak, though her heart was full. For her feelings dragged her two ways, and she would not, nay, she could not speak. That much she owed to her lover. Yet the idea of sacrificing a woman to save a man shocked her deeply, shocked alike her womanliness and her courage; and not by a word, not by so much as the raising of a finger would she press the girl, whose very rank and power left her friendless among them, and made her for the time their sport. But neither-though her heart was racked with pity and shame-would she dissuade her. In any other circumstances which she could conceive, she had cast her arms about the child and withheld her by force. But her lover-her lover was at stake. How could she sacrifice him? How prefer another to him? And after all-she, too, acknowledged, she, too, felt the force of the argument-after all, the Countess would be only where she would have been but for her. But for her the young girl would be already in Vlaye's power; or worse, in the peasants' hands. If she went now she did but assume her own perils, take her own part, stand on her own feet.
"I shall go the rather," the Countess continued coldly, using that very argument, "since I should be already in his power had I gone myself to the peasants' camp!"
"You shall not go! You cannot go!" the Vicomte repeated with stupid iteration.
"M. le Vicomte," she answered, "I am the Countess of Rochechouart." And the little figure, the infantine face, assumed a sudden dignity.
"It is unbecoming!"
"It becomes me less to let a gallant gentleman die."
"But you will be in Vlaye's power."
"God willing," she replied, her spirit still sustaining her. Was not the Abbess, whom she was beginning to hate, looking at her?
Ay, looking at her with such eyes, with such thought, as would have overwhelmed her could she have read them. Bitter indeed, were Odette's reflections at this moment-bitter! She had stained her hands and the end was this. She had stooped to a vile plot, to an act that might have cost her sister her life, and with this for reward. The triumph was her rival's. Before her eyes and by her act this silly chit, with heroics on her lips, was being forced into his arms! And she, Odette, stood powerless to check the issue of her deed, impotent to interfere, unable even to vent the words of hatred that trembled on her lips.
For the Duke was listening, and she had still enough prudence, enough self-control, to remember that she must not expose her feelings in his presence. On him depended what remained: the possibility of vengeance, the chances of ambition. She knew that she could not speak without destroying the image of herself which she had wrought so patiently to form. And even when he added his remonstrances to her father's, and hot words imputing immodesty rose to the Abbess's lips-words that must have brought the blood to the Countess's cheeks and might have stung her to the renunciation of her project, she dared not utter them. She swallowed her passion, and showed only a cold mask of surprise.
Not that the Duke said much. For after a while, "Well, perhaps it is best," he said. "What if she pass into his power! It is better a woman marry than a man die. We can make the one a widow; whereas to bring the other to life would puzzle the best swordsman in France!"
The Vicomte persisted. "But there is no burden laid on the Countess to do this," he said. "And I for one will be no party to it! What? Have it said that I surrendered the Countess of Rochechouart who sought my protection?"
"Sir," the girl replied, trembling slightly, "no one surrenders the Countess save the Countess. But that the less may be said to your injury, my own people shall attend me thither, and-"
"They will avail you nothing!" the Vicomte replied with a frankness that verged on brutality. "You do not understand, mademoiselle. You are scarcely more than a child, and do not know to what you are going. You have been wont to be safe in your own resources, and now, were a fortnight given you to gather your power, you could perhaps make M. de Vlaye tremble. But you go from here, in three hours you will be there, and then you will be as much in his power, despite your thirty or forty spears, as my daughter was this morning!"
"I count on nothing else," she said. But her face burned. And Bonne, who suffered with her, Bonne who was dragged this way and that, and would and would not, in whom love struggled with pity and shame with joy, into her face, too, crept a faint colour. How cowardly, oh, how cowardly seemed her conduct! How base in her to buy her happiness at the price of this child's misery! To ransom her lover at a woman's cost! It was a bargain that in another's case she had repudiated with scorn, with pride, almost with loathing. But she loved, she loved. And who that loved could hesitate? One here and there perhaps, some woman of a rare and noble nature, cast in a higher mould than herself. But not Bonne de Villeneuve.
Yet the word she would not utter trembled on her tongue. And once, twice the thought of Roger shook her. He, too, loved, yet he bore in silence to see his mistress delivered, tied and bound, to his rival!
How, she asked herself, how could he do it, how could he suffer it? How could he stand by and see this innocent depart to such a fate, to such a lot!
That puzzled her. She could understand the acquiescence of the others; of her sister, whom M. de Vlaye's inconstancy must have alienated, of Joyeuse, who was under an obligation to des Ageaux, of the Vicomte, who, affecting to take the Countess's part, thought in truth only of himself. But Roger? In his place she felt that she must have spoken whatever came of it, that she must have acted whatever the issue.
Yet Roger, noble, generous Roger-for even while she blamed him with one half of her mind, she blessed him with the other-stood silent.
Silent, even when the Countess with a quivering lip and a fleeting glance in his direction-perhaps she, too, had looked for something else at his hands-went out, her surrender a settled thing; and it became necessary to give orders to her servants, to communicate with the Bat, and to make such preparations as the withdrawal of her men made necessary. The Duke's spears were expected that day or the next, but it needed no sharp eye to discern that Vlaye's capture of the Lieutenant had taken much of the spirit out of the attack. The Countess's men must now be counted on the Captain of Vlaye's side; while the peasants, weakened by the slaughter which Vlaye had inflicted on them at the mill, and by the distrust which their treachery must cause, no longer stood for much in the reckoning. It was possible that the Lieutenant's release might reanimate the forces of the law, that a second attempt to use the peasants might fare better than the first, that Joyeuse's aid might in time place des Ageaux in a position to cope with his opponent. But these were possibilities only, and the Vicomte for one put no faith in them.
He was utterly disgusted, indeed, with the turn which things were taking. Nor was his disgust at any time greater than when he stood an hour later and viewed the Countess and her escort marching out of the camp. If his life since Coutras had been obscure and ignoble, at least it had been safe. While his neighbours had suffered at the Captain of Vlaye's hands, he had been favoured. He had sunk something of his pride, and counted in return on an alliance for his daughter, solid if not splendid. Now, by the act of this meddling Lieutenant-for he ignored Vlaye's treatment both of his daughter and the Countess-all was changed. He had naught to expect now but Vlaye's enmity; Villeneuve would no longer be safe for him. He must go or he must humble himself to the ground. He had taken, he had been forced by his children to take, the wrong side in the struggle. And the time was fast approaching when he must pay for it, and smartly.
CHAPTER XX.
THE ABBESS MOVES
That Bonne failed to read the dark scroll of her sister's thoughts need not surprise us; since apart from the tie of blood the two women had nothing in common. But that she failed also to interpret Roger's inaction; that, blaming herself for an acquiescence which love made inevitable, she did not spare him, whom love should have moved in the opposite direction-this was more remarkable. For a closer bond never united brother and sister. But misery is a grand engrosser. She had her lover in her thoughts, the poor girl whom she sacrificed on her mind; and she left the Duke's quarters without that last look at her brother which might have enlightened her.
Had she questioned him he had discovered his mind. She did not, and she had barely passed from sight before he was outside and had got a fresh horse saddled. One thing only it was prevented his leaving the camp in advance of the Countess, whose people were not ready. His foot was raised to the stirrup when he bethought him of this thing. He left the horse in charge of a trooper and hurried back to the Duke's quarters, found him alone and put his question.
"You made a man fight the other night against his will," he said, his head high. "Tell me, my lord, how I can do the same thing."
The Duke stared, then laughed. "Is it that you want?" he answered. "Tell me first whom it is you would fight, my lad?"
"The Captain of Vlaye."
"Ah?"
"You said a while ago," Roger continued, his eyes sparkling, "that you would presently make her a widow. Better a widow before she is wed, I say!"
The Duke smiled whimsically. "Sits the wind in that quarter?" he answered. "You have no mind to see her wed at all, my lad? That is it, is it? I had some notion of it."
"Tell me how I can make him fight," Roger replied, sticking to his question and refusing even to blush.
"Tell me how I can get the moon!" Joyeuse answered, but not unkindly. "Why should he risk his life to rid himself of you, who are no drawback to him? Tell me that! Or why should he surrender the advantage of his strong place and his four hundred spears to enter the lists with a man who is naught to him?"
"Because if he does not I will kill him where I find him!" Roger replied with passion. And the mode of the day, which was not nice in the punctilios of the duel, and forgave the most irregular assault if it were successful, which cast small blame on Guise for the murder of St. Pol, or on Montsoreau for the murder of Bussy, justified the threat. "I will kill him!" he repeated. "Fair or foul, light or dark-"
"He shall not wed her!" the Duke cried in a mocking tone and with an extravagant gesture. But in truth the raillery was on the surface only. The lad's spirit touched the corresponding note in his own nature. None the less he shook his head. "Brave words, brave words, young man," he continued; "but you are not Vitaux, who counted his life for nothing, and whose sword was a terror to all."
"But if I count my life for nothing?"
"Ay, if! If!"
"And why should I not?" Roger retorted, his soul rising to his lips. "Tell me, my lord, why should I count it for more? What am I, the son of a poor gentleman, misshapen, rough, untutored, that I should hold my life dear? That I should spare it, and save it, as a thing so valuable? What have I in prospect of all the things other men look to? Glory? See me! Fine I should be," with a bitter laugh covering tears, "in a triumph, or marching up the aisle to a Te Deum! Court favour? Ay, I might be the dwarf in a masque or the fool in motley! Naught besides! Naught besides, my lord! And for love?" He laughed still more bitterly. "I tell you my own father winces when he sees me! My own sister and my own brother-well, they are blind perhaps. They, they only, and old Solomon, and the woman who nursed me and dropped me-see in me a man like other men. Leave them out, and, as I live, until this man came-"
"Des Ageaux?"
"Des Ageaux-until he came and spoke gently to me and said, 'do this, and do that, and you shall be as Gourdon or as Guesclin!'-even he could not promise me love-as I live, till then no man pitied me or gave me hope! And shall I let him die to save my stunted life?"
"But it is not the saving him that is in question," the Duke replied gently, and with respect in his tone. He was honestly moved by this unveiling of poor Roger's thoughts. "She saved him."
"And I'll save her," Roger replied with fervour. "I will save her though I die a hundred deaths. For she, too-"
He paused. The Duke looked at him, a spice of humour mingling with his sympathy. "She, too, sees in you a man like other men," he said, "I suppose?"
"She pitied me," Roger answered. "No more; she pitied me, my lord! What more could she do, being what she is? And I being what I am?" His chin sank on his breast.
The Duke nodded kindly. "May-be," he said. "Less likely things have happened." And then, "But what will you do?" he asked.
"Go with her and see him, take him aside, and if he will fight me, well! And if he will not, I will strike him down where he stands!"
"But that will not save des Ageaux."
"No?"
"No! On the contrary, it will be he," Joyeuse retorted somewhat grimly, "who will pay for it. Do you not see that?"
"Then I will wait," Roger replied, "until he is released."
"And then," the Duke asked, still opposing, though the man and the plan were alike after his own heart, "what of the Countess? M. de Vlaye dead, who will protect her? His men-"
"They would not dare!" Roger cried, trembling. "They would not dare!"
"Well, perhaps not," the Duke answered, after a moment's thought. "Perhaps not. Probably his lieutenant would protect her, for his own sake. And des Ageaux free would be worth two hundred men to us. Not that, if I were well, he would be in question. But I am but half a man, and we need him!"
"You shall have him," Roger answered, his eyes glittering. "Have no doubt of it! But advise me, my lord. Were it better I escorted her to the gate and sought entrance later, after he had released des Ageaux? Or that I kept myself close until the time came?"
"The time? For what?"
The speaker was the Abbess. Unseen by the two men, she had that moment glided across the threshold. The pallor of her features and the brightness of her eyes were such as to strike both; but differently. To the Duke these results of a night passed in vivid emotions, and of a morning that had crowned her schemes with mockery, only brought her into nearer keeping with the dress she wore-only enhanced her charms. To her brother, on the other hand, who now hated Vlaye with a tenfold hatred, they were grounds for suspicion-he knew not why. But not even he came nearer to guessing the truth. Not even he dreamt that behind that mask were passions at work which, had they discovered them, would have cast the Duke into a stupor deeper than any into which his own mad freaks had ever flung a wondering world. As it was, the Duke's eyes saw only the perfection of womankind; the lily of the garden, drooping, pale, under the woes of her frailer sisters. Of the jealousy with which she contemplated the surrender of her rival to her lover's power, much less of the step which that surrender was pressing upon her, he caught no glimpse.
"The time for what?" the Duke repeated, with looks courteous to the point of reverence. "Ah-pardon, my sister, but we cannot take you into our counsel. Men must sometimes do things it is not for saints to know or women to witness."
"Saints!" The involuntary irony of her tone must have penetrated ears less dulled by prejudgment. "Saints!" and then, "I am no saint, my lord," she said modestly.
"Still," he answered, "it were better you did not know, mademoiselle. It is but a plan by which we think it possible that we may yet get the better of M. de Vlaye and save the child before-before, in fact-"
"Ay?" the Abbess said, a flicker of pain in her eyes. "Before-I understand."
"Before it be too late."
"Yes. And how?"
The Duke shook his head with a smile meant to propitiate. "How?" he repeated. "That-pardon me-that is the point upon which-we would fain be silent."
"Yet you must not be silent," she replied. "You must tell me." And pale, almost stern, she looked from one to the other, dominating them. "You must tell me," she repeated. "Or perhaps," fixing Roger with a glance keen as steel, "I know already. You would save her by killing him. It is of that you are thinking. It is for that your horse is waiting saddled by the gate. You would ride after her, and gain access to him-and-"
"She has not started?" Roger exclaimed.
"She started ten minutes ago," the Abbess answered coldly. "Nay, stay!" For Roger was making for the door. "Stay, boy! Do you hear?"
"I cannot stay!"
"If you do not stay you will repent it all your life!" the Abbess made answer in a voice that shook even his resolution. "And she all hers! Ha! that stays you?" with a gleam of passion she could not restrain. "I thought it would. Now, if you will listen, I have something to say that will put another complexion on this."
They gazed expectant, but she did not at once continue. She stood reflecting deeply; while each of her listeners regarded her after his knowledge of her; Roger sullenly and with suspicion, doubting what she would be at, the Duke in admiration, expecting that with which gentle wisdom might inspire her.
Secretly she was heart-sick, and the sigh which she could not restrain declared it. But at last, "There is no need of violence," she said wearily. "No," addressing Roger, who had raised his hand in remonstrance, "hear me out before you interrupt me. How will the loss of a minute harm you? Or of five or ten? I repeat, there is no need of violence. Heaven knows there has been enough! We must go another way to work to release her. It is my turn now."
"I would rather trust myself," Roger muttered; but so low that the words, frank to rudeness, did not reach Joyeuse's ears.
"Yet you must trust me," she answered. "Do so, trust me, and follow my directions, and I will take on myself to say that before nightfall she shall be free."
"What are we to do?" the Duke asked.
"You? Nothing. I, all. I must take her place, as she has taken M. des Ageaux'."
For an instant they were silent in sheer astonishment. Then, "But M. de Vlaye may have something to say to that!" Roger ejaculated before the Duke could find words. The lad spoke on impulse. He knew a little and suspected more of the lengths to which Vlaye's courtship of his sister had gone.
If she had not put force on herself, she had flung him a retort that must have opened the Duke's eyes. Instead, "I shall not consult M. de Vlaye," she replied coldly. "I have visited him on various occasions, and we are on terms. My appearance in Vlaye, seeing that the Abbey of Vlaye is but a half-league from the town, will cause no surprise. Once in the town, if I can enter the castle and gain speech of the Countess, she may escape in my habit."
"I hate this shifting and changing!" Roger grumbled.
"But if it will save her?"
"Ay, but will it?" Roger returned, shrugging his shoulders. He suspected that her aim was to save M. de Vlaye rather than the Countess. "Will it? Can you, in the first place, get speech of her?"
"I think I can," the Abbess answered quietly. "Many of the men know me. And I will take with me Father Benet, who is at the Captain of Vlaye's beck and call. He will serve me within limits, if a friend be needed. I shall wear my robes, and though she is shorter and smaller I see no reason why she should not pass out in them in the twilight or after dark."
"But what of you?" the Duke asked, staring much.
"I shall remain in her place."
"Remain in her place?" Joyeuse said slowly, in the voice he would have used had Our Lady appeared before him. "You will dare that for her?"
A faint colour stole into the Abbess's cheeks. "It is my expiation," she murmured modestly. "I struck her-God forgive me!"
"But-"
"And I run no risk. M. de Vlaye knows me, and this" – with a gesture which drew attention to her conventual garb-"will protect me."
The Duke gazed at the object of his adoration in a kind of rapture, seeing already the wings on her shoulders, the aureole about her head. "Mademoiselle, you will do that?" he cried. "Then you are no woman! You are an angel!" In his enthusiasm he knelt-not without difficulty, for he was still weak-and kissed her hand. To him the thing seemed an act of pure heroism, pure self-denial, pure good-doing.
But Roger, who knew more of his sister's nature and past history, and whose knowledge left less room for fancy's gilding, stood lost in gloomy thought. What did she mean? Was she going as friend or enemy? Influence with Vlaye she had, or lately had; but, the Countess released, in what a position would she, his sister, stand? Could he, could her father, could her friends let her do this thing?
Yet the chance-to a lover-was too good to reject; the position, moreover, was too desperate for niceties. The thought that she was going, not for the sake of the Countess, but of the Captain of Vlaye, the suspicion that she was not unwilling to take the Countess's place and the Countess's risks, occurred to him. But he thrust, he strove to thrust the suspicion and the thought from him. Her motive and her meaning, even though that motive and meaning were to save the Captain of Vlaye, were small things beside the Countess's safety.
"At any rate I shall go with you," he said at length, and with more of suspicion than of gratitude in his tone. "When will you be ready?"
"I think it likely that he will have bidden Father Benet to be with him at sunset," she answered. "If we are at the priest's, therefore, an hour earlier, it should do."
"And for safe-conduct?"
"I will answer for that," she replied with boldness, "so far as M. de Vlaye's men are concerned."
The answer chafed Roger anew. Her reliance on her influence with Vlaye and Vlaye's people-he hated it; and for an instant he hesitated. But in the end he swallowed his vexation: had he not made up his mind to shut his eyes? And the three separated after a few more words relating to the arrangements to be made. The Duke, standing with a full heart in the doorway, watched her to her quarters, marked the grace of her movements, and in his mind doomed the Captain of Vlaye to unspeakable deaths if he harmed her; while she, as she passed away, thought-but we need not enter into her thoughts. She was doing this, lest a worse thing happen; doing it in a passion of jealousy, in a frenzy of disgust. But she had one consolation. She would see the Captain of Vlaye! She would see the man she loved. Through the dark stuff of her thoughts that prospect ran like a golden thread.