CHAPTER XXIII
LUCETTE AS DECOY
THE Governor returned to the Castle in a somewhat less violent mood. The report that the fugitives had been seen and identified at Crevasse was so precise and definite that he was confident they would now be recaptured, and it was in this confident mood that he himself carried the news to his wife.
Lucette was with her and had just told her that Gabrielle was safe at Malincourt, when he arrived, gloating at the thought of his coming triumph and brutally profuse in threats as to the punishment he would inflict. As soon as he had left, Lucette slipped away to put her own plan into operation.
She did not go to Antoine at once in the courtyard, but hung about until she saw Dauban and then put herself, as if by chance, in his way, and when she was sure he had seen her she made a great show of surprise and turned as if to hurry away from him. It was well acted.
“So you avoid me, mademoiselle?” he said, going after her.
“How dare you speak to me?” she cried indignantly.
“Fine airs for a prisoner,” he retorted.
“You are a noble fellow, indeed, to taunt a poor girl, Master Dauban. But have a care what you say. If I am a prisoner, I am in the charge of one who won’t see me insulted. Antoine de Cavannes is a man with a stouter arm than Master Dauban, any day,” and she tossed her pretty head and turned again on her heel.
This had just the effect she had calculated. He had been pondering over Antoine’s words, speculating who it was in his charge who knew the whereabouts of the runaways, and he chuckled now at his own cleverness in making the discovery.
“Not so fast, mademoiselle; I mean no harm. I am sorry for you and would help you. On my honour, I meant no insult,” he said, following her.
She stopped, but with an air of reluctance.
“Yet you did taunt me,” and she gave him a reproachful glance, with just enough suggestion of tenderness in it to make him uncomfortable. But with a sudden change her eye flashed and she cried contemptuously—
“You help me! Why you are too great a coward! I thought once——” and she stopped.
“I am no coward,” he answered, with none too easy a laugh.
“I would have sworn that once,” her tone was now regret with the suspicion of a sigh, “but you let even Denys beat you.” It was a daring reference, but she felt very sure of her power with him.
“You lured me then,” he declared, with an angry flush. This was her cue.
“Master Dauban! How can you!” and she fixed her large dark eyes upon him with a look of pained reproach, changing gradually to indignation as she added, with mounting vehemence, “Did I not say you were a coward? To blame a poor girl for what was none of her fault, and never to have spoken a word to her since. Oh!” and she stamped her foot now almost viciously, “were I not a girl you should pay for the cruel slander and—aye, and all your neglect.” Then as if the thought of his neglect wounded her, her anger passed and she sighed in sore distress.
He was visibly disquieted, and in an indecisive, self-exculpating manner he asked—
“But you did lure me, knowing he was there, didn’t you?”
“Oh, Master Dauban, how can you say such cruel things! I would have thought the words would burn your lips. Do you think I would have had you maltreated; you?” and again with excellent inconsequence she took fire again, using her eyes all the while with deadly effect. “But I am glad now. Yes, I am glad, glad, glad; do you understand? You are one of those men who think they can play with a girl as they will; and you shall pay for it. Aye, you shall, if I have to go on my knees to beg some one to do me justice. You shall fool me no more.”
He was thoroughly perplexed, as well he might be, indeed.
“I don’t understand you. You are going to marry Denys.”
She laughed recklessly, almost wildly, stamped her foot at him again, and flashed glances of anger at him.
“Marry Denys! Yes, I will marry any man now; any man who will avenge me with you. Look to yourself, I warn you. Oh, my God!” and as if in passion she hid her face in her hands and turned away.
“Lucette, Lucette,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off angrily and started from him. Other feelings were roused in him now than greed and cunning, and he found them very flattering to his vanity and very delightful. “Don’t do this, Lucette. I had no idea, on my soul, I hadn’t,” he said.
The words appeared to add fuel to her anger, and uncovering her face she turned upon him, the traces of tears in her eyes.
“What a coward’s speech; oh, what a coward’s speech!” she cried vehemently. “Who but a coward would make such a plea! But I ought to have known you better—aye, as I know you now. You spoke me gently, gave me soft speeches, led me to think I know not what, you won my—but I will not lower myself to say more; and then like a coward and all unlike the man I deemed you, you fawn on me with your ‘I had no idea.’ Shame on you, shame on you. I could hate you for such words.”
“Could hate me, Lucette; but you do not?” It was plain, indeed, from both her words and agitation.
“If I do not,” and she held him with an intent look for a pause until she appeared to master her emotion, and said quietly, “I have forgotten my resolve. I meant not to speak to you again, Master Dauban. It will be better so; and in time I may forgive and—forget,” the last word died away in a sigh which went straight to his heart.
“As God is my judge, Lucette, I had no thought of this. I wronged you. I believed you did but play with me and took me that evening to the pine-walk that Denys St. Jean should see us. Why, I love the very ground you tread on.”
“No, no, I won’t hear it. I won’t believe it; I cannot.”
“It’s true, it’s true, I swear it is.”
Again she looked at him long and searchingly until the lustre of her eyes seemed to daze him.
“And condemned me without a word,” she said, with a sigh of exquisitely tender reproach. “Is that how a man trusts the girl he loves? Nay, Jacques, you may think you love me, but you would have come to me in candour and trust, not have flung an angry taunt at me.”
“Did I not trust you? Did I not warn you against this Gerard de Cobalt? Was I not ready to betray even my master for your sake? Was I not telling you everything that evening?”
She continued to hold him with the magnetism of her look, and when he stopped she answered slowly and deliberately—
“I shall marry Antoine de Cavannes. He loves me, I know, and is as true as steel in his love. He guards me here and will see I come to no harm.”
He moved uneasily under her glance, and then looking about him lowered his voice.
“He is not true to you, Lucette. He is going to betray you.”
“Jacques, Jacques, how dare you! Would you slander him, too? Have a care lest I tell him.”
“Listen to me; what I say is the truth. He thinks you know where Mademoiselle de Malincourt can be found and the prisoners; there is a price of a thousand crowns on their heads, and he means to use you to find them and win the money.”
“Holy Virgin! now am I a miserable and desolate girl,” cried Lucette in a fresh paroxysm of distress. “Oh, it cannot be true, it cannot!”
“It is true, I swear it,” he replied very earnestly, and gave her a garbled account of what had passed between himself and Antoine.
As she listened her agitation mounted, and when he finished she exclaimed, as if unstrung in her emotion—
“I will never tell him, I will never tell him.” Then as if realizing she had betrayed herself, she stared at him in distress and alarm, and protested with excited, voluble earnestness: “I did not mean that, Jacques; I did not mean that. Do not misunderstand me. I meant nothing,” and she clung to his arm with piteous entreating glances. “What I meant was I know nothing. You understand that, don’t you, don’t you? Oh, thank Heaven, you warned me. Jacques, dear Jacques, I thank you from my soul, I thank you. Oh, what might I not have done in my blindness!”
So she did know after all, thought Dauban; and his selfish love being satisfied by what she had done and said, his greed began to grow stronger again.
Her sharp wits read him like an open book, and with a dexterous change of tone and manner she said as if speaking her thoughts aloud—
“A thousand crowns! And for a scoundrel like this Gerard de Cobalt!”
“Miladi is infatuated with him and should be saved from him,” said Dauban, with a cunning glance. “Else she may be ruined.”
“No, no, Jacques; don’t tempt me with such thoughts. Yet, how true, how shrewdly true! No, no, it would be vile baseness.”
“You would save her from a villain,” he urged.
“And for my reward she would never look at me again. Oh, Gabrielle, Gabrielle!”
“Our reward would be a thousand crowns, Lucette. A thousand crowns would be a fortune for us.”
“A million crowns would not tempt me to such treachery. How dare you, Jacques! I am not thinking of money, but of Gabrielle. Oh, if she is now in his power!”
“The money is on his head, not hers,” he said. “If he were taken, miladi could be left free—and she would be saved from him. You know where she is?” He put the question very gently.
“Yes, no; oh, I am longing to go to her. I don’t know what I am saying, or whom I can trust. Oh, Jacques, if I could but trust you!” and she clung to him again in her distress and looked wistfully into his face.
“I swear on my life I am true to you, Lucette. Let us go to her. She is in the city?” he asked, pushing his point a little further.
“When I think what she must be suffering I am mad. If I could but get to her with what she needs from Malincourt, I might save her yet. I could take her some disguise and fly with her. But I am a prisoner. A prisoner, my God, a prisoner at such a time!” Her agony at the thought was perfectly acted.
“I could go to Malincourt,” he suggested.
“But there is Antoine; and even were I free from the Castle and got what I need from Malincourt, I could not pass the city gates. Oh, what can I do! What can I do!”
“I have a permit to leave the city when I will, and could take you. See,” he answered in the same sleek, smooth voice, as he took it out and showed it to her. “Then she is not in the city?” he added, when Lucette seemed to hesitate. “They say that all have been seen at Crevasse.”
“But they will not be found, save by those who know where to look. If I could make sure that only he would be taken, I should not mind then. And there is the money, Jacques. Oh, was ever a poor girl so troubled!”
“I could manage it, Lucette, and manage Antoine, too. Listen. Go to him and pretend that you need certain things for yourself from Malincourt; say nothing of miladi, and we will all go together. If both Antoine and I are with you, no questions will be asked as to where you go. You can then get the disguise and whatever else you need for miladi, and I’ll find a pretext to get rid of Antoine, and you and I alone will go to miladi.”
“How cunningly you plan, Jacques; how shrewd! You make it seem so simple,” and Lucette thanked him with a radiant smile. Her face clouded again instantly, however, as she added, “But Antoine is a dangerous man, Jacques.”
“I will manage that. At need, I will have him recalled from Malincourt, or we will return to the Castle and then I will get him away. But mind, not a syllable about miladi.”
“You give me courage, Jacques. Let us go to him. He keeps his ward of me in the courtyard, that I may not pass. You speak of Malincourt to him. You can hide your thoughts; and he would read mine.”
They went then together and found Antoine lounging in the courtyard chatting with a group of soldiers. He left them at once and crossed to Lucette, looking displeased that Dauban was with her.
“You have kept me waiting,” he said.
“And is that a crime, M. Gaoler?” she answered mockingly, with a toss of the head. “Maybe I was in better company,” and she glanced at Dauban, who smiled self-complacently. “Perhaps you would like me to be gyved to you by the wrist.”
“Nearer the finger-tips than the wrist would suit me better, Lucette,” he laughed.
“Well, a gaoler should be a judge of fetters, but I wear none.”
“Not fetters, Lucette; a ring for the left hand,” he answered, looking at her with a bold admiration that was little to Dauban’s taste.
“We have come to ask you a question, Antoine,” he said.
“We?” echoed Antoine, with a sharp glance at Lucette.
“I said ‘we.’ Lucette has need of certain things from Malincourt and would fain go there in quest of them. I told her there would be no difficulty were you and I to escort her there and back.”
“It was very thoughtful of you—but she is my prisoner.”
“She will be nobody’s prisoner the moment the fugitives are brought in from Crevasse.”
“Then she will need no things from Malincourt,” returned Antoine sharply, with a knowing smile. But Lucette struck in at once briskly—
“Do you mean I cannot go? Say so openly, if you do, and I shall know what to think. It is when a poor girl is at such a pass as I am that she can judge her friends. Master Dauban, who knows more of these things in one tiny corner of his brain than you do in your whole body, said there would be no difficulty.”
“Dauban hasn’t been put in charge of you and isn’t responsible to the Governor. I am,” said Antoine sulkily.
“Master Dauban would take some risk to give a poor girl some pleasure, wouldn’t you, Jacques?” Antoine winced at the name thus glibly spoken.
“There is no risk; but if there were I’d run it, readily enough.”
“I know you would, Jacques. I know a friend when I see one. I don’t want to go now, monsieur,” she said to Antoine angrily. “If I know my friends, I also know my enemies. You are my gaoler, very well; you are afraid to do a little thing like this, very well. You make big promises and refuse this, again very well. Perhaps my gaoler has some orders to give?” and she looked at him with angry defiant eyes.
“Lucette, I——”
“No thank you. I don’t want to hear you. I won’t hear a word you say,” she cried, with a stamp of the foot. She could put a deal of meaning into that stamp of the foot. “I suppose a prisoner can go back into the Castle. Come, Jacques,” and she made as if to turn away.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t go, Lucette. You’ve such a fiery temper,” said Antoine, all unwilling that she should leave like this.
“Then you must find it very disagreeable to be with me,” she rapped back. “Come, Jacques,” and laid a hand on Dauban’s arm.
But Dauban was now less set upon love-making than seeking to gain the thousand crowns, and he would not go.
“Antoine did not say you should not go, Lucette; he only said there was more risk for him than for me. And that’s true.”
“But I don’t wish to go now. I know now who is not my friend; and that knowledge is cheaply gained by the lack of just a few things I wished. It does not matter to him what happens to me: he has his duty to think of and his master, the Governor. Like Tiger, like whelp. He would like to see me stretched on the rack.”
“Lucette, don’t say that, don’t,” cried Antoine.
“You could listen to my groans as my joints were stretched, and chuckle to think how well you had done your duty. I know you now.”
“For God’s sake don’t talk at random in that way,” he protested. “If it comes to that I’d be the first to help you to escape. I would, on my honour.”
“Hear him, hear him,” exclaimed Lucette disdainfully. “The man would not let me fetch a few tie ribbons from Malincourt, and yet would risk his life!” Her contempt was splendid.
“I’ll go with you to Malincourt; aye, and get you out of the city, Lucette, if you but bid me.”
“You hear, Lucette, he will take you,” said Dauban, stopping the angry tirade which was hovering on her lips.
She paused a moment, and then with a smile and a curl of the lip, said—
“No, monsieur, you had better not. I am a girl and you two are only strong men and armed, and you might be hurt. I might kill you both with my empty hands, and then escape. Pray be cautious.”
Antoine laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“What a little devil you are, Lucette. May I be hanged if I know whether you want to go or not. But if you do, you can.”
“Let us go,” said Dauban practically.
“Are you sure you both feel safe?” asked Lucette with mock sweetness, and then glanced at Antoine with a smile which completed his conquest.
“Come,” he answered; “you always get your way.”
They crossed the courtyard at a leisurely pace and passed slowly through the gate, the two men exchanging words with the guards, and then turned in the direction of Malincourt.
“If the Governor asks for me while we’re away, there’ll be trouble for me,” said Antoine somewhat ruefully.
“If he asked for me and I wasn’t away, there would be greater trouble for me,” she retorted. “But if you repent, we’ll go back.”
“Don’t spit such fire at me, Lucette; I meant nothing.”
“We’d better hasten, I think,” said Dauban, and they quickened their steps to a rapid pace. Lucette played the one man against the other with great adroitness until they were near Malincourt and the cedar gate was in sight, when she began to set them by the ears.
“Jacques tells me there is a price of a thousand crowns on Gerard de Cobalt’s head. Is that so, Antoine?”
“Yes. It was announced in the Castle and has been proclaimed in the city.”
“Is it true you have a mind to earn it?”
“A thousand crowns is a thousand crowns.”
“And blood money is blood money, too. Is it not so, Jacques?”
“If it has to be earned by somebody, why not one as well as another?”
“I see no flaw in that reasoning either,” and Antoine laughed.
“Is that why you told Jacques you could use me to earn it?” asked Lucette, looking at him fixedly.
“Did he say that?” asked Antoine, glancing angrily at Dauban. He bore him no good will for having forced himself into this walk, nor for the angry words Lucette had spoken to him, and her looks.
“Indeed, he did. Didn’t you, Jacques?” and her sharp eyes were on him now much to his uneasiness.
“I didn’t say that exactly,” he replied.
“Jacques!” cried Lucette in an indignant tone.
“You mistook me.”
“Well, what did you say then?”
“Aye, Master Dauban, let’s have that. Let’s hear what you did say,” and Antoine frowned darkly.
“I don’t remember exactly what I said. And it doesn’t matter.”
“By your leave, but it does matter.” Antoine was growing more angry.
“Now, don’t begin to quarrel,” exclaimed Lucette, pouring oil on to the flames with a dexterous hand. “Master Dauban only said that you meant to use me as a decoy to find mademoiselle, and then I agreed to help him to get the money for himself if he promised to save mademoiselle and only capture this de Cobalt.”
“A thousand devils! Is that true, Master Dauban?” cried Antoine in a voice of rage at this proof of treachery.
“Oh, what have I said!” exclaimed Lucette in distress. “Oh, Antoine, don’t look at him like that. You frighten me. You must not harm him.”
“Why are you so zealous for him? Do you care? By Heaven! look to yourself there, you Dauban,” and out flashed his sword.
“Oh, Antoine, Antoine, dear Antoine, you must not, you must not,” she cried, clinging to his sword-arm. But he shook her off and turned upon Dauban, who was deadly white.
They stood now just within the gate of Malincourt.
“Come, Master Dauban, if you’ve anything to say, say it,” said Antoine in a very threatening tone.
“I—I can explain all this,” answered Dauban anxiously. “There has been a mistake. Let me speak alone with you.”
“None of your lies for me, thank you. Speak out now,” and Antoine made a step toward him and raised his weapon.
As the sword flashed in the sunlight, Lucette shrank back as if terror-stricken and gave a loud scream. At the sound some half-dozen soldiers came running up from among the trees.
“Ah, messieurs, messieurs, help, help! Stop them, or there will be bloodshed,” cried Lucette.
“What does this mean?” asked one of the soldiers.
“Who are you?” said Antoine, looking at them in surprise.
“We’re guarding the place for the Governor,” was the reply. “What’s the trouble?”
“Nothing that concerns you. Go your way,” he answered angrily.
“Not so fast, my dunghill cock. Put up that weapon and come to the house. And you, too, mistress, if you please.”
“Don’t you dare to interfere with me,” protested Antoine.
“Yes, we’d better go to the house,” said Dauban, secretly rejoicing at the interruption.
“Go you on with mademoiselle, then,” said the soldier, “and do you come with me, monsieur,” and at a sign from him three of the men closed round Antoine, and made it perfectly clear that they meant to use force if necessary.
At that moment Lucette turned and smiled.
“You would have used me as a decoy, monsieur? Come then to the house and we will see how it can be best done.”
With a great oath in his mortification and bewilderment, he sheathed his sword and seeing resistance was useless, marched on between the soldiers.