A LAST APPEAL
Fernande had said nothing to Madame la Marquise of her rencontre with Ronnay de Maurel. Of a truth, Madame, despite her many promises to Laurent, had not kept a very close eye on her niece's movements. Fernande had been away from the château during the best part of the morning; she came home with tear-stained eyes, and her gown had obviously trailed in the mud, but Madame apparently noticed nothing. All the day she wandered about the château in a perfect fever of excitement. In the afternoon a runner came over from Courson with news from all the chiefs. The next day was now irrevocably fixed upon for the attack on the foundries. Leroux was to be given his final instructions, and Madame herself be prepared to hold the château against any assault delivered against it by the local peasantry, who no doubt were well armed by de Maurel and had been drilled against any emergency.
M. de Courson had added a special note to the letter telling Madame, that the Comte de Puisaye had decided to send his friend Prigent with forty or fifty men to La Frontenay in case of attack.
"The château can very easily be held," M. de Courson's note went on, "and we have no fears for you, knowing your energy and resourcefulness. Give Leroux the fullest instructions possible, then do not send for him again during the day. I have an idea that he is being watched by spies of de Maurel's, and he will have to be very circumspect for the next thirty-six hours. As for us all, we are more full of hope than ever. We reviewed our men last night in the park. They are marvellously enthusiastic and firm in the belief that their prowess will rally thousands of waverers to the Fleur-de-Lis. De Puisaye has recruited a further two hundred, and hath now a force of over six on the further side of Mortain. Everything, therefore, is for the best, and nothing but some absolutely unforeseen accident can now rob us of success. Above all, I entreat you, my dear sister, be as silent and discreet as the grave. Remember that walls of French châteaux have oft had ears in the course of their history. Speak to no one of our plan for to-morrow ... not to Matthieu Renard, not to his wife. Do not discuss it with Fernande in the presence of those whom you think most loyal. To-morrow afternoon at three o'clock see Leroux in your private boudoir. Be sure that door and windows are closed and that no one lurks behind curtains or screens. Then tell the man to have everything ready for that night. De Puisaye will arrive at the foundries soon after midnight, and he will expect to find arms for six hundred men ready to his hand. After that he will see to everything himself. Command Leroux to speak to no one, to trust no one—but to select with the utmost care the fifty men whom he requires to remain at the factories with him, in order to surprise the watchmen and prevent the alarm being given. Keep Fernande out of your councils, my dear Denise, as far as you can. The child appears to me to be overwrought and might do some act of headstrongness which might ruin everything. Something seems to have occurred between her and Laurent just before we left La Frontenay. You will know, no doubt, what it was. Laurent is a prey to most acute jealousy. He has worried me considerably since yesterday. He hath need of all his courage and coolness to bear his share of our work to-morrow night. While I lead the attack on Mortain it will be his duty to hold up the garrison of Domfront, else they may fall on de Puisaye and his men, or else on me, when perhaps not one of us would come out of it alive. I would not wrong Laurent by suggesting that he is not up to the task, but it were well if Fernande sent him a loving message by this same runner, in order to reassure him and to brace him up for his task. Now, my dear sister, I can do nothing more save commend you and my child to the care of God."
The letter closed with many assurances of affection and a tone of seriousness, which showed that M. de Courson was not perhaps quite in such an optimistic frame of mind as were his chiefs.
Madame had frowned and uttered an exclamation of impatience when in her brother's letter she had read the passage about Laurent. The Fates which are wont to spin the threads of human destinies without heeding the best-laid plans of men, smiled, no doubt, in their lonely eyrie up on the summit of the Brocken, when Madame la Marquise de Mortain, disdaining her brother's advice, chose in her usual dictatorial, self-willed way to send a message to Laurent herself, rather than ask Fernande to do so.
She couched her message in loving and reassuring terms, but she said nothing to Fernande on the subject. Why, she could not herself have said. There was no reason why the girl should not be told that her fiancé was in the throes of a maddening attack of jealousy, and that a word from her might soothe his perturbed spirit and restore to him that courage of which he would presently be in such sore need. But Madame had a horror of anything that might present her beloved son in an unfavourable light. Any failing or weakness of his would, she felt, redound in a measure to her discredit. That is the only reason why she said nothing to Fernande, and why she herself sent the message to Laurent which, as events unfortunately proved subsequently, had not the effect of reassuring him.
In other matters she acted entirely in accordance with her brother's orders. Obedience in that case meant military discipline, and rather flattered Madame's sense of her own importance and responsibility. She spent the best part of the day in her own room, and, entirely self-absorbed, she completely ignored Fernande's presence and Fernande's movements. From the château she could see or hear nothing of the bustle and movement of the distant factories, but it seemed to her as if their unheard throbbings found their echo against her heart. To-morrow, she thought, they would for the last time manufacture engines of war to help the King's enemies in their disloyalty and their treachery; for the last time to-morrow would the abominable Corsican upstart look to La Frontenay for the cementation of his throne. She could not spare a thought for the son against whom she was intriguing with such ruthless callousness. A year ago she had planned to win him over to her side. In this she had signally failed. She might have tried again now, only that there was no time for protracted diplomacy.
To bring Ronnay de Maurel back to heel was a doubtful proposition; if it did succeed, it would be months before good results could be hoped for. In the meanwhile the King could not wait. Ronnay de Maurel stood in his way: therefore must the loyal adherents of the King sweep the offending obstacle from his path.
Leroux arrived punctually at three o'clock the following afternoon. Madame la Marquise was in Fernande's room, talking platitudes to the young girl in a tardy fit of remorse at having neglected her so completely these past two days.
Fernande appeared more dejected than she had been before, and Madame had much ado to keep her temper from breaking away against so much pessimism, which almost amounted to disloyalty.
It was old Annette who announced Leroux, and Madame la Marquise sent a message down to say that she would see him immediately. As soon as Annette had gone, Fernande, with one of her sudden, impulsive gestures, threw her arms round Madame's shoulders.
"Before it is too late, ma tante," she cried, with a tone of desperate entreaty, "will you not think—just once more?"
"Too late for what, child?" retorted Madame impatiently, and she shook herself free from the young girl's arms which encircled her with a forceful and passionate grip.
"Too late to avert this appalling calamity," replied Fernande. "That man Leroux is a criminal, a murderer," she continued with ever-increasing vehemence. "His greed for the money which has been offered him will render him utterly unscrupulous. I could see it in his face the other day ... when he was here ... and M. de Puisaye was speaking to him. He will stick at nothing, ma tante, at nothing in order to gain his ten thousand francs."
"Well, my dear," rejoined Madame coldly, "we want a man who will stick at nothing. King Louis hath no use for velvet gloves, for mincing ways, or for half-hearted cowards these days. We have to fight an unscrupulous foe, remember. What is Bonaparte, what are these regicides, I'd like to know, but criminals and murderers! What is Mademoiselle de Courson at this moment," she added, as with flaming cheeks and glowing eyes she turned on Fernande and would have smitten her with a look—"what is Mademoiselle de Courson now save a half-hearted coward, unworthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with her father, her lover, her kinsfolk in their homeric struggle for justice and for right?"
But Fernande bore the withering looks and the insult unflinchingly. It seemed as if in the last two days she had stepped boldly across the dividing line which separates blind unquestioning childhood from understanding and reasoning womanhood. All the horror for past crimes and past excesses committed against her King and against her cause was still present in her mind; but now she refused to accept the complacent theory that crime must beget worse crime and that revenge and reprisals, murder and pillage, would ever help the righteousness of a cause or be justifiable in the sight of God.
"Bid me fight, ma tante," she retorted proudly, "side by side with my father; bid me meet the enemies of my King in loyal combat, and I'll warrant you'll not find me weak or cowardly. Fight! Yes, let us fight—fight as did George Cadoudal and Louis de Frotté and Henri de la Rochejaquelin—let us fight like men, but not like criminals. In God's name let us not stoop to murder."
"Murder, child!" exclaimed Madame, "who talked of murder, I should like to know?"
"Would you swear, ma tante," riposted Fernande slowly, "that whilst you traffic with a man like Leroux, the possibility of an awful, hideous, horrible murder has never presented itself to your mind? That you have never envisaged the likelihood of Ronnay de Maurel getting wind of this affair and of his taking Leroux to task for his proposed treachery? Have you never thought, ma tante, of what would happen if Leroux thought that his master suspected him, and if he then came face to face with him—somewhere alone...?"
Just for the space of one second Madame la Marquise de Mortain stood quite still—rigid almost as a statue—with eyes closed and lips tightly set. Just for the space of that one second it seemed as if something human, something womanly, stirred within that heart of stone. Then an impatient exclamation escaped her lips.
"Tush, child!" she said. "I'll not be taken to task by you. Who are you, pray, that you should strive to throw your childish sensibilities, your childish nonsense across the path of your King's destiny? Ronnay de Maurel must take his chance in this fight," she added, as she threw back her head with a movement of invincible determination. "He has chosen the traitor's path; while he and his kind have the power, they stick at nothing to bring us into subjection. We have the chance now ... one chance in a thousand—to gain the upper hand of all these regicides and these minions of Bonaparte. To neglect that chance for the sake of a craven scruple were now an act of criminal folly. Let that be my last word, child," continued Madame, as she made for the door; "do not let me hear any more of your warnings, your prophecies, or your sermons. What has been decided by our chiefs shall be done—understand?—and what must be, must be. And when your father returns, after having risked his life for the cause which you seem to hold so lightly, take care lest the first word he utters be one of condemnation of a recreant daughter.”
Madame la Marquise did not pause to see what effect her last stern words had upon Fernande. She sailed out of the room with no further thought in her mind of the passionate appeal which had left her utterly cold. To her now there existed only one thing in the entire world, and that was the project for the seizure of the La Frontenay foundries and its consequent immense effect upon the ultimate triumph of the Royalist cause. Everything else, every thought, every feeling, every duty she swept away from her heart and from her mind as petty, irrelevant, and not worthy to be weighed in the balance with the stupendous issue which was at stake.
Indeed, as she sped down to the hall for this final momentous interview with Leroux, she felt greatly thankful that yesterday she had not acted on her brother's advice, and that she had written to Laurent herself rather than allowed Fernande to do so. The girl, in writing to her lover, might have indulged in one of those dithyrambics which were so unexplainable, and which might still further have upset Laurent. As it was, everything was for the best, and Madame dismissed any latent fears from her mind just as readily as she had dismissed any slight twinge of remorse which Fernande's words might have caused to arise in her heart.
Leroux, gruff and surly as usual, had been shown into a small library adjoining the great entrance-hall of the château, a room which M. de Courson had of late used as an office for transacting the correspondence of his party and receiving any messengers sent to him by one of his chiefs. Here the man had waited, while Madame was being detained upstairs by Fernande's last tender appeal.
He greeted Madame la Marquise with a rough and churlish word, and as soon as she had closed the door behind her he began abruptly:
"We'll have to be very careful," he said; "something of our project is known to de Maurel. I'd stake my life on it."
The flush of anger of a while ago fled from Madame's cheeks, but otherwise nothing in her attitude betrayed to this boor the slightest sign of fear on her part.
"What makes you think that?" she asked coolly, as she took a seat in a high-backed chair, and graciously waved her hand to Leroux in token that he, too, might sit down.
"Yesterday I wanted to come here and speak with you about one or two matters," replied the man, "when I met the Maréchal upon the high road."
"The Maréchal?" queried Madame, with a supercilious lift of the eyebrows.
"Why, yes! Our General is Marshal of France now," said Leroux with a sneer. "He gained his baton fighting against the Prussians, so I've been told."
"All of which is of no consequence, my man," broke in Madame impatiently. "We have no time to waste this morning, and you were telling me that you met M. le Comte de Maurel when you were on your way hither."
"I did," rejoined Leroux sullenly.
"And what did he say?"
"He asked me where I was going."
"And...?"
"I told him that I was free to come and go as I pleased, seeing that I was chief overseer of the factory now."
"It was very imprudent to give your present master such an impertinent answer," said Madame peremptorily. "You were expressly ordered to curb your temper and to gain M. de Maurel's confidence as far as lay in your power."
"I did curb my temper," rejoined the man. "And I did not give him an impertinent answer. I spoke as if I had honey in my mouth. I am merely telling you the drift of what I said. My actual words were cringing enough."
"Very well, then, what happened after that?"
"The Maréchal told me that though the military representatives had appointed me chief overseer, he himself had not confirmed that appointment, nor would he confirm it, he said, till I showed myself really worthy of his confidence. He didn't say much, for he is never over talkative with any of us. But he looked me through and through in a way that I didn't like."
"Never mind how he looked. Did he say anything else?"
"Yes. He told me that he expressly forbade every one of his men to have any intercourse with the château, and that I was distinctly to understand that he forbade me most strictly to come to the château, or to hold converse with any of its inmates."
Madame bit her lip and her slender white fingers beat an impatient tattoo upon the desk beside her. But she said quite unconcernedly:
"Was that all?"
"Yes, that was all. But I thought it best not to come yesterday. To-day I had to come, because we absolutely must do the work to-night—even to-morrow might be too late. I am certain that I am being watched; every hour's delay means danger of discovery. You should have taken my advice and done the trick two days ago; it would all be over by now...."
"And it will be done to-night," broke in Madame firmly. "You were told two days ago that it would be for to-night, and you had no right to endanger your position at the works by being discovered coming here so often."
"I was told nothing definite two days ago, and I was on my way here for the express purpose of warning you."
"In any case, there's not much harm done," rejoined Madame coolly. "Even if M. de Maurel comes to mistrust you, no change can take place in the arrangements for to-night. He would not dismiss you at a moment's notice, would he?"
"He would not dare to do that," retorted Leroux roughly.
"From what I hear," said Madame la Marquise, "there is not much that M. de Maurel would not dare."
"Well, in any case, he could not turn me out neck and crop from the Lodge. I am there securely enough, at any rate, until the time when I hand over the works to your people in consideration of ten thousand francs for myself and a hundred apiece for my men."
"That is all understood, of course. And you are quite prepared for to-night?"
"Quite. Fifty of my mates are slackening off already. When I return to the works I shall give out that those fifty must work overtime to-night. Don't you be afraid; there's not going to be any hitch."
"Pray God there won't be," murmured Madame fervently.
She was about to recapitulate some further instructions to Leroux, when a timid knock at the door, repeated more insistently a moment or two later, caused her to order Leroux to stand aside for a moment while she herself went to the door. She had no premonition of any trouble just then; long afterwards, when in her mind she lived over again every hour of that memorable day, she always was quite certain that she went to open that door without any thought of an approaching calamity.
Old Matthieu Renard was at the door.
"It is M. le Maréchal," he said simply.
Strangely enough, although both he and his wife were firmly attached to M. de Courson and to Madame la Marquise, they had never thoroughly imbibed the contempt which all loyal Royalists were compelled to feel toward the honours and distinctions which were conferred on his adherents by the usurper Bonaparte.
Madame drew back at his words very suddenly, like someone who, wandering in a peaceful glade, comes unprepared upon some fearsome thing. She had certainly this time become white to the lips, and the hand wherewith she beckoned to Matthieu to enter trembled visibly.
"You mean M. de Maurel?" she queried huskily. "Where is he?"
"Just coming up the perron steps," replied Matthieu, who also appeared very agitated. "He took his horse round to the stables first. I was in the garden. I saw him. He called to me and sent me to announce his visit to Madame."
"I had best go," muttered Leroux hurriedly and shuffled up to the door.
Madame stopped him with a word.
"Impossible," she said. "If M. de Maurel is coming up the perron steps now, you cannot fail to meet him face to face in the hall."
"I don't want him to see me here."
"Stay where you are, man," commanded Madame imperiously, and Leroux, whose sallow cheeks were the colour of ashes, muttered something between his teeth and withdrew into a dark corner of the room. Then Madame turned once more to old Matthieu.
"You did not think," she said, "of saying to M. de Maurel that I was from home."
"Yes, I did," replied the man. "I told him you were away."
"And what did he say?"
"That he would wait until your return, and in the meanwhile would speak with his overseer, Paul Leroux, who he believed was within."
There came a violent oath from Leroux, and Madame put a handkerchief up to her lips which felt cracked and dry; and during the silence that ensued there came echoing through the silent house the sound of a footfall with a curious lilt in it—the unmistakable footsteps of a man who is lame.
"Stand aside, Matthieu," said Madame, with as much dignity as she could command, even though her voice sounded raucous and hoarse. "I will go speak with M. de Maurel. Do you follow me into the hall, and you, Leroux," she added, once more turning to the craven creature who made no attempt to disguise his fears, "stay here!"