Under the Red Robe Page 15

  CHAPTER XV. ST MARTIN'S SUMMER

  Yes, at the great Cardinal's levee I was the only client! I stared roundthe room, a long, narrow gallery, through which it was his custom towalk every morning, after receiving his more important visitors. Istared, I say, from side to side, in a state of stupefaction. The seatsagainst either wall were empty, the recesses of the windows emptytoo. The hat sculptured and painted here and there, the staring R, theblazoned arms looked down on a vacant floor. Only on a little stool bythe farther door, sat a quiet-faced man in black, who read, or pretendedto read, in a little book, and never looked up. One of those men, blind,deaf, secretive, who fatten in the shadow of the great.

  Suddenly, while I stood confounded and full of shamed thought--for I hadseen the ante-chamber of Richelieu's old hotel so crowded that he couldnot walk through it--this man closed his book, rose and came noiselesslytowards me.

  'M. de Berault?' he said.

  'Yes,' I answered.

  'His Eminence awaits you. Be good enough to follow me.'

  I did so, in a deeper stupor than before. For how could the Cardinalknow that I was here? How could he have known when he gave the order?But I had short time to think of these things, or others. We passedthrough two rooms, in one of which some secretaries were writing, westopped at a third door. Over all brooded a silence which could be felt.The usher knocked, opened, and, with his finger on his lip, pushed asidea curtain and signed to me to enter. I did so and found myself behind ascreen.

  'Is that M. de Berault?' asked a thin, high-pitched voice.

  'Yes, Monseigneur,' I answered trembling.

  'Then come, my friend, and talk to me.'

  I went round the screen, and I know not how it was, the watching crowdoutside, the vacant ante-chamber in which I had stood, the stillness andsilence all seemed to be concentrated here, and to give to the man I sawbefore me a dignity which he had never possessed for me when the worldpassed through his doors, and the proudest fawned on him for a smile.He sat in a great chair on the farther side of the hearth, a little redskull-cap on his head, his fine hands lying still in his lap. The collarof lawn which fell over his cape was quite plain, but the skirts of hisred robe were covered with rich lace, and the order of the Holy Ghost, awhite dove on a gold cross, shone on his breast. Among the multitudinouspapers on the great table near him I saw a sword and pistols; and sometapestry that covered a little table behind him failed to hide a pairof spurred riding-boots. But as I advanced he looked towards me with theutmost composure; with a face mild and almost benign, in which I strovein vain to read the traces of last night's passion. So that it flashedacross me that if this man really stood (and afterwards I knew that hedid) on the thin razor-edge between life and death, between thesupreme of earthly power, lord of France and arbiter of Europe, and thenothingness of the clod, he justified his fame. He gave weaker naturesno room for triumph.

  The thought was no sooner entertained than it was gone.

  'And so you are back at last, M. de Berault,' he said gently. 'I havebeen expecting to see you since nine this morning.'

  'Your Eminence knew, then--' I muttered.

  'That you returned to Paris by the Orleans gate last evening alone?' heanswered, fitting together the ends of his fingers, and looking at meover them with inscrutable eyes. 'Yes, I knew all that last night. Andnow, of your business. You have been faithful and diligent, I am sure.Where is he?'

  I stared at him and was dumb. In some way the strange things I had seensince I had left my lodgings, the surprises I had found awaiting mehere, had driven my own fortunes, my own peril, out of my head--untilthis moment. Now, at this question, all returned with a rush, and Iremembered where I stood. My heart heaved suddenly in my breast. Istrove for a savour of the old hardihood, but for the moment I could notfind a word.

  'Well,' he said lightly, a faint smile lifting his moustache. 'You donot speak. You left Auch with him on the twenty-fourth, M. de Berault.So much I know. And you reached Paris without him last night. He has notgiven you the slip?'

  'No, Monseigneur,' I muttered.

  'Ha! that is good,' he answered, sinking back again in his chair. 'Forthe moment--but I knew that I could depend on you. And now where is he?What have you done with him? He knows much, and the sooner I know it thebetter. Are your people bringing him, M. de Berault?'

  'No, Monseigneur,' I stammered, with dry lips. His very good-humour,his benignity, appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the change, howfearful his rage, when I should tell him the truth. And yet that I, Gilde Berault, should tremble before any man! With that thought I spurredmyself, as it were, to the task. 'No, your Eminence,' I said, withthe energy of despair. 'I have not brought him, because I have set himfree.'

  'Because you have--WHAT?' he exclaimed. He leaned forward as he spoke,his hands on the arm of the chair; and his eyes growing each instantsmaller, seemed to read my soul.

  'Because I have let him go,' I repeated.

  'And why?' he said, in a voice like the rasping of a file.

  'Because I took him unfairly,' I answered.

  'Because, Monseigneur, I am a gentleman, and this task should have beengiven to one who was not. I took him, if you must know,' I continuedimpatiently--the fence once crossed I was growing bolder--'by dogging awoman's steps and winning her confidence and betraying it. And whateverI have done ill in my life--of which you were good enough to throwsomething in my teeth when I was last here--I have never done that, andI will not!'

  'And so you set him free?'

  'Yes.'

  'After you had brought him to Auch?'

  'Yes.'

  'And, in point of fact, saved him from falling into the hands of theCommandant at Auch?'

  'Yes,' I answered desperately to all.

  'Then, what of the trust I placed in you, sirrah?' he rejoined, in aterrible voice; and stooping still farther forward he probed me with hiseyes. 'You who prate of trust and confidence, who received your lifeon parole, and but for your promise to me would have been carrion thismonth past, answer me that? What of the trust I placed in you?'

  'The answer is simple,' I said, shrugging my shoulders with a touch ofmy old self. 'I am here to pay the penalty.'

  'And do you think that I do not know why?' he retorted, striking onehand on the arm of his chair with a force that startled me. 'Because youhave heard, sir, that my power is gone! Because you have heard that I,who was yesterday the King's right hand, am to-day dried up, witheredand paralysed! Because you have heard--but have a care! have a care!'he continued with extraordinary vehemence, and in a voice like a dog'ssnarl. 'You and those others! Have a care, I say, or you may findyourselves mistaken yet.'

  'As Heaven shall judge me,' I answered solemnly, 'that is not true.Until I reached Paris last night I knew nothing of this report. I camehere with a single mind, to redeem my honour by placing again in yourEminence's hands that which you gave me on trust, and here I do placeit.'

  For a moment he remained in the same attitude, staring at me fixedly.Then his face relaxed somewhat.

  'Be good enough to ring that bell,' he said.

  It stood on a table near me. I rang it, and a velvet-footed man in blackcame in, and gliding up to the Cardinal, placed a paper in his hand. TheCardinal looked at it; while the man stood with his head obsequiouslybent, and my heart beat furiously.

  'Very good,' his Eminence said, after a pause which seemed to me to beendless, 'Let the doors be thrown open.'

  The man bowed low, and retired behind the screen. I heard a little bellring somewhere in the silence, and in a moment the Cardinal stood up.

  'Follow me!' he said, with a strange flash of his keen eyes.

  Astonished, I stood aside while he passed to the screen; then I followedhim. Outside the first door, which stood open, we found eight or ninepersons--pages, a monk, the major-domo, and several guards waiting likemutes. These signed to me to precede them and fell in behind us, and inthat order we passed through the first room and the second, where theclerks stood with be
nt heads to receive us. The last door, the door ofthe ante-chamber, flew open as we approached, voices cried, 'Room! Roomfor his Eminence!' we passed through two lines of bowing lackeys, andentered--an empty chamber.

  The ushers did not know how to look at one another; the lackeys trembledin their shoes. But the Cardinal walked on, apparently unmoved, until hehad passed slowly half the length of the chamber. Then he turned himselfabout, looking first to one side and then to the other, with a low laughof derision.

  'Father,' he said in his thin voice, 'what does the Psalmist say? "I ambecome like a pelican in the wilderness and like an owl that is in thedesert!"'

  The monk mumbled assent.

  'And later in the same psalm, is it not written, "They shall perish, butthou shalt endure?"'

  'It is so,' the father answered. 'Amen.'

  'Doubtless though, that refers to another life,' the Cardinal said, withhis slow wintry smile. 'In the meantime we will go back to our books,and serve God and the King in small things if not in great. Come,father, this is no longer a place for us. VANITAS VANITATUM OMNIAVANITAS! We will retire.'

  And as solemnly as we had come we marched back through the first andsecond and third doors until we stood again in the silence of theCardinal's chamber--he and I and the velvet-footed man in black. For awhile Richelieu seemed to forget me. He stood brooding on the hearth,his eyes on a small fire, which burned there though the weather waswarm. Once I heard him laugh, and twice he uttered in a tone of bittermockery the words,--

  'Fools! Fools! Fools!'

  At last he looked up, saw me, and started.

  'Ah!' he said, 'I had forgotten you. Well, you are fortunate, M. deBerault. Yesterday I had a hundred clients; to-day I have only one,and I cannot afford to hang him. But for your liberty that is anothermatter.'

  I would have said something, pleaded something; but he turned abruptlyto the table, and sitting down wrote a few lines on a piece of paper.Then he rang his bell, while I stood waiting and confounded.

  The man in black came from behind the screen.

  'Take this letter and that gentleman to the upper guard-room,' theCardinal said sharply. 'I can hear no more,' he continued, frowning andraising his hand to forbid interruption. 'The matter is ended, M. deBerault. Be thankful.'

  In a moment I was outside the door, my head in a whirl, my heart dividedbetween gratitude and resentment. I would fain have stood to considermy position; but I had no time. Obeying a gesture, I followed my guidealong several passages, and everywhere found the same silence, the samemonastic stillness. At length, while I was dolefully considering whetherthe Bastille or the Chatelet would be my fate, he stopped at a door,thrust the letter into my hands, and lifting the latch, signed to me toenter.

  I went in in amazement, and stopped in confusion. Before me, alone, justrisen from a chair, with her face one moment pale, the next crimson withblushes, stood Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. I cried out her name.

  'M. de Berault,' she said, trembling. 'You did not expect to see me?'

  'I expected to see no one so little, Mademoiselle,' I answered, strivingto recover my composure.

  'Yet you might have thought that we should not utterly desert you,' shereplied, with a reproachful humility which went to my heart. 'We shouldhave been base indeed, if we had not made some attempt to save you.I thank Heaven, M. de Berault, that it has so far succeeded that thatstrange man has promised me your life. You have seen him?' she continuedeagerly and in another tone, while her eyes grew on a sudden large withfear.

  'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I said. 'I have seen him, and it is true, He hasgiven me my life.'

  'And--?'

  'And sent me into imprisonment.'

  'For how long?' she whispered.

  'I do not know,' I answered. 'I fear during the King's pleasure.'

  She shuddered.

  'I may have done more harm than good,' she murmured, looking at mepiteously. 'But I did it for the best. I told him all, and perhaps I didharm.'

  But to hear her accuse herself thus, when she had made this long andlonely journey to save me, when she had forced herself into her enemy'spresence, and had, as I was sure she had, abased herself for me, wasmore than I could bear.

  'Hush, Mademoiselle, hush!' I said, almost roughly. 'You hurt me. Youhave made me happy; and yet I wish that you were not here, where, Ifear, you have few friends, but back at Cocheforet. You have done morefor me than I expected, and a hundred times more than I deserved. Butit must end here. I was a ruined man before this happened, before I eversaw you. I am no worse now, but I am still that; and I would not haveyour name pinned to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God forbidI should say more to you, or let you stay where foul tongues would soonmalign you.'

  She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then, with a growing smile,--

  'It is too late,' she said gently.

  'Too late?' I exclaimed. 'How, Mademoiselle?'

  'Because--do you remember, M. de Berault, what you told me of yourlove-story under the guide-post by Agen? That it could have no happyending? For the same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to theCardinal. By this time it is common property.'

  I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her eyes shone under the lashesthat almost hid them. Her figure drooped, and yet a smile trembled onher lips.

  'What did you tell him, Mademoiselle?' I whispered, my breath comingquickly.

  'That I loved,' she answered boldly, raising her clear eyes to mine.'And therefore that I was not ashamed to beg--even on my knees.'

  I fell on mine, and caught her hand before the last word passed herlips. For the moment I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the future,all; all except that this woman, so pure and so beautiful, so far aboveme in all things, loved me. For the moment, I say. Then I rememberedmyself. I stood up, and stood back from her in a sudden revulsion offeeling.

  'You do not know me!' I cried, 'You do not know what I have done!'

  'That is what I do know,' she answered, looking at me with a wondroussmile.

  'Ah! but you do not!' I cried. 'And besides, there is this--this betweenus.' And I picked up the Cardinal's letter. It had fallen on the floor.She turned a shade paler. Then she cried quickly,--

  'Open it! open it! It is not sealed nor closed.'

  I obeyed mechanically, dreading with a horrible dread what I might see.Even when I had it open I looked at the finely scrawled characters witheyes askance. But at last I made it out. And it ran thus:--

  'THE KING'S PLEASURE IS THAT M. GIL DE BERAULT, HAVING MIXED HIMSELF UPIN AFFAIRS OF STATE, RETIRE FORTHWITH TO THE DEMESNE OF COCHEFORET, ANDCONFINE HIMSELF WITHIN ITS LIMITS UNTIL THE KING'S PLEASURE BE FURTHERKNOWN.

  'THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.'

  We were married next day, and a fortnight later were at Cocheforet, inthe brown woods under the southern mountains; while the great Cardinal,once more triumphant over his enemies, saw with cold, smiling eyes theworld pass through his chamber. The flood tide of his prosperity lastedthirteen years from that time, and ceased only with his death. For theworld had learned its lesson; to this hour they call that day, which sawme stand alone for all his friends, 'The Day of Dupes.'