THE STRAW
The clock in the tower of the château struck nine when Fernande, wrapped in a dark cloak and with a hood thrown over her head, stole on tip-toe across the hall and slipped through the glazed doors and down the perron steps. She went along with utmost caution, peering all round her ere she ventured along.
Once past the terrace she felt freer, and without hesitation she dived into the path which, winding through the shrubberies, led both to the main entrance of the park and to a small postern gate in the boundary wall.
After the sultriness of the day the evening was oppressive and dark; heavy banks of clouds had gathered before the crescent moon, and there was a stillness in the air which presaged a storm. The splendid gardens of La Frontenay were wrapped in gloom; not a breath stirred the leaves of secular oaks and chestnuts; not a sound came from out the thicket, save now and then the crackling of tiny twigs under the feet of furtive little beasts that ran scurrying by.
From over the hills there came from time to time the roll of distant thunder, and ever and anon a flash of summer lightning threw for the merest fraction of a second a weird glow on the far-off woods, and the vague outline of the factory buildings some three kilomètres away.
Fernando, holding her cloak tightly around her, slipped through the postern gate, and found herself in the lane which after a few hundred mètres abuts on the high road; from this point the foundries could be reached in a little over half an hour. She walked as quickly as the darkness would allow. She had never been along this way before, but she knew that she could not miss it. Darkness was her friend and her ally in her nocturnal expedition, since it kept her hidden from the view of the occasional passer-by.
The road was lonely enough. It was long after working hours; the factory hands and foundry men had, for the most part, returned to their homes; here and there in the distance a tiny light from a cottage window glimmered feebly like a yellow winking eye out of the surrounding blackness; and up on the height the village of La Vieuville clustered around its church and its château.
After the excitement and the soul agony of the day, Fernande felt perfectly calm. The horrible alternative which Madame la Marquise had so ruthlessly placed before her had put all her sensibilities and every one of her nerves on the rack, until the very faculty for suffering had gone from her, and she felt numbed and bruised both physically and mentally. But during that terrible hour, when driven forth like a hunted creature to seek shelter and solitude from the cruel taunts of Madame, she had prayed to God to guide her in her terrible perplexity, a resolution had gradually taken form in her mind, a resolution which she firmly believed had been instilled into her in answer to her impassioned prayer.
Madame la Marquise was, no doubt, right when she said that the life or death of a bitter enemy was not like to turn Joseph de Puisaye from his present purpose. An appeal or a warning to him at this hour from anyone but Madame herself would obviously not only be futile, but would waste several precious, irreclaimable hours.
On the other hand, if she—Fernande—did go to La Vieuville—as her first instinct had prompted her to do—and warned de Maurel not to go alone to the factory this night, there was no doubt that the plans of de Puisaye would not only be gravely jeopardized, but they would be rendered impossible of execution, and her father's position, not to speak of Laurent's and of the other chiefs', would be irretrievably compromised—their lives probably in danger. De Maurel, scenting a conspiracy, would at once pass the word round to the garrisons close by, and until their arrival he would know how to protect his property with the help of his own loyal workmen.
This, Madame had undoubtedly put very clearly before Fernande; she could not save de Maurel from the guet-apens which had been prepared against him, except by sacrificing Laurent, her father and her friends—her King and his cause. Indeed, it was only God who could show a way through such an appalling perplexity, and Fernande was more than justified in her conviction that the thought which came to her whilst she knelt heart-broken and in prayer, was a direct manifestation of His will.
"I can at least save him from that assassin," she thought, when at nine o'clock she started on her way.
Fernande had only once been to the La Frontenay factories, and that was over a year ago in the company of de Maurel. Since then she had purposely avoided taking her walks in that direction, and her recollection of the place was, therefore, hazy and incomplete. She had now been walking a little over half an hour when a sudden bend in the road revealed the proximity of the huge pile of irregular buildings—standing partly within iron fencings, partly inside the precincts of high boundary walls—which nestled at the foot of the hills and represented Ronnay de Maurel's priceless patrimony.
Up to now she had met an occasional passer-by on the highway—a belated workman going to his home, a young pair of lovers out for a stroll, a housewife with heavy basket returning from Domfront—but here silence and loneliness appeared to be absolute. A row of street-lanthorns fixed in the boundary walls of the group of buildings shed uneven circles of light at intervals, and inside the precincts a few of the windows showed a light, whilst higher up two clock-towers loomed out of the darkness like monster glow-worms.
Fernande walked a few hundred mètres further on and then she came to a standstill, trying to co-ordinate her recollections of the place. That time—a year ago—de Maurel had conducted her through the foundries first, and then he had led her through a gate in the iron fencing, across a clearing to another gate built in the high wall. This gave on a vast quadrangle, on every side of which lay the worksheds of the powder factory. Her thoughts on it all were still very chaotic, but she had a vague remembrance of the large storehouse standing in the centre of the quadrangle and surmounted by its clock-tower, of Mathurin escorting her after she had taken leave of de Maurel, back through the postern gate and along a footpath until she came once more to the main road, where the carriole and the high-stepper stood waiting to take her home again to Courson.
Now when she closed her eyes, shutting away the confusion of lights which flickered through the impenetrable shadows, she was able to visualize the locality more accurately. The foundries obviously lay to her right behind the iron fencing; the powder factory lay beyond, some two-thirds of a kilomètre away, isolated, and well away from the road inside its high encircling walls. With the various positions thus fixed upon her mind, Fernande advanced more boldly. Her heart was beating tumultuously in her bosom—not with fear, but with vague wonderment as to what was to come. The sight of the high walls had given her the first pang of doubt. If gates were closed against her, if sentries challenged, what would she do?
But she had no mind to draw back. On her actions, she felt, depended the life of a brave man and also the honour of her cause. She walked quickly past the foundries on the opposite side of the road; then, when she saw the factory walls, she crossed over, and keeping well within the shadows, she found herself presently outside the main gates. They were of forged iron, high, massive and forbidding; a metal lanthorn was fixed immediately above them, and at the moment when she passed into the circle of light projected by the lanthorn, a peremptory voice called out from within: "Who goes there?"
At once she beat a hasty retreat and a frown of deep perplexity settled upon her brow. If she could not get to the Lodge at all, how would she speak with Leroux? What would she do to save an unsuspecting man—a brave man—from assassination?
Vividly, as in a flash of awakened memory, there came back to her mind every word of that conversation which she had overheard this afternoon between Madame, Leroux and de Maurel, she heard once more—as distinctly as she had heard it then—Leroux' savage question: "Who is to sleep at the Lodge to-night?" She heard the simple answer: "I am!" She heard Leroux' snarls and his overt threats, she heard de Maurel's accusing words: "Your disobedience is only equalled by your criminal carelessness!"
Then her heart gave a leap. Memory did not play her false; it brought back also the very words which now gave her renewed hope and courage. "Last night, after closing hours," de Maurel had said, "I found the side gate open and unguarded." Leroux, most like, surly and obstinate, would not redeem the carelessness of the day before. It was more than probable that he would leave the gate unguarded again to-night.
Buoyed by this hope, excitement getting the better of her quietude of a while ago, Fernande now retraced her steps in order to find the footpath which, somewhere between the foundry fencing and the factory wall, must, she knew, lead to the side gate through which Mathurin had conducted her a year ago.
Her memory had not deceived her; after a minute or two she struck the path and at once turned to walk rapidly along it. Darkness here was absolute; there were no lanthorns fixed either in the wall or the fencing, only a couple of hundred mètres on ahead a tiny glimmer of light flickered feebly through the gloom. Fernande was walking more cautiously now, and she felt the wall as she went all along with her hand. She had fixed her eyes on that tiny glimmer which seemed to her like a beacon which would lead her to her goal. Soon it revealed itself as a small, well-screened light fixed just above a low iron gate.
No one challenged her this time as she approached, and by the dim light above she felt for the latch. It yielded. She pushed open the gate, and the next moment she found herself inside the precincts of the powder factory. Everything was dark around her, and through the darkness there loomed up dense and black the pile of irregular low buildings—the sheds, the offices, the workshops, with, in the centre, the somewhat taller edifice of the storehouse, which contained the vast reserves of explosives. It was surmounted by a clock-tower, from which the rays of an unseen lamp projected a large circle of light on the pavement below; close by was a small building, presumably the Lodge. At any rate, this was the only spot in the large quadrangle which showed signs of life inside its walls. Everything else was absolutely still as well as dark. Fernande ventured nearer, then she paused, breathless. She had come to the end of her journey, to the point where her powers of persuasion would be put to the test, where she would have to rely upon herself, upon her own eloquence, her own personality, in order to compel a few miscreants to abandon their dastardly purpose.
For the first time here, where only a few mètres separated her from that band of assassins, she realized the possibility of failure; and she realized that her plan, which had seemed so simple and so direct at home, was, indeed, like a mere straw at which a dying man might clutch.
There was a light in two of the windows of the Lodge; one of these was open; through it came the murmur of muffled voices. Fernande tip-toed up to it as closely as she dared. She would have given worlds to hear what was said in there—by Leroux and his mates, whose purpose it was to betray their master this night—God help them!—to murder him if he stood in their way.
Oh, for the power to avert that awful catastrophe without betraying her own father, her friends and her King!
But though thoughts, projects, wild hopes and wilder fears went on hammering at the portals of her brain, it seemed to her that they went round and round in a continuous circle, which never diverged from that one appalling centre: "If the alarm is given, the forces which have started from Mortain under de Puisaye, under Laurent and under her father, cannot fail to be surprised—cannot fail to be overwhelmed and possibly annihilated; at best, the whole project whereon now rests the hopes of the entire Royalist party is doomed to fail; and she—Fernande de Courson—would be the traitor who had betrayed her own kindred and the cause of her King."
After a while she felt more calm. Finality to a brave soul does not mean despair—it means a renewal of courage to face or fight even the inevitable. No longer hesitating now, Fernande walked boldly up the steps which led to the entrance door of the Lodge; then she rapped on the door with her knuckles.
The strain of muffled voices which had come from within died down at her loud rat-tat, and through the open window she heard a sound like the shuffling and scurrying of heavy, furtive feet; then nothing more.
The roll of distant thunder had become louder and more continuous, the flashes of summer lightning more frequent. From the wooded heights behind the factories there came the intermittent soughing of the wind through the trees, followed by an absolute stillness, a calm which was the direct forerunner of the coming storm.
The air was sultry and filled with the sickening odour of sulphur. From time to time a heavy raindrop descended, large as a thumbnail, and Fernande fell to wondering how her father and Laurent would fare on their march if the storm broke with its threatened violence, and how far de Puisaye and his four hundred men were at this hour from La Frontenay.
After a while she knocked again. This time she heard distinctly a heavy, shuffling footstep approaching the door. Though her heart was beating so violently that its throbbing felt nigh to choking her, she was not the least afraid, and when, after a moment or two, the door was thrown open and Leroux' ungainly figure appeared before her, silhouetted against the light beyond, she spoke quite calmly and without the slightest tremor in her voice.
"It is I, Leroux," she said—"Mademoiselle de Courson—you know me?"
The man came nearer to her. She was standing on a step below him and the light from a hanging lamp in the room behind him fell full upon her face. He looked at her keenly for a few seconds, then he replied curtly: "Yes. I know you! What do you want?"
"To speak with you, Leroux," she said. "I have a message for you from Madame la Marquise de Mortain. Let me in."
"Madame la Marquise chooses her messenger strangely," he retorted sullenly, "at this hour of the night."
"No one else was willing to affront the coming storm. Our servants are cowards. Let me in, Leroux."
Leroux made no immediate reply. He looked over his shoulder into the interior of the room, apparently with a view to taking counsel with his mates. Fernande, with her hood and cloak drawn closely round her, waited on the doorstep.
That moment a vivid flash of lightning rent the heavy bank of clouds in the east, and a clap of thunder rolled echoing above the hills. She suppressed an involuntary cry of terror, but she called out more insistently:
"Let me in, Leroux. 'Tis a matter of life and death."
But Leroux did not stand aside; instead of this, he stepped over the threshold, and as Fernande instinctively retreated, he came down the steps, and then he closed the door behind him.
"Let me in, Leroux," she said more peremptorily. "I cannot speak with you out here."
"Why not?" he retorted. "I have no secrets that the night birds may not hear.”
Every time that he spoke Leroux came a step or two nearer to her, and every time she retreated as far away from him as she dared, without arousing his resentment and causing him to turn sullenly from her and refuse to listen to what she had come to say. Thus he had forced her as far back as the circle of light which came from the clock-tower. Here he paused and looked her up and down with every mark of surliness and insolence imprinted upon his face.
"Now what is it?" he queried roughly. "And be quick about it. There's men's work to be done here to-night. 'Tis not a place for women."
"I know that," replied Fernande boldly; "the work that I am doing now is really men's work. It is nearly four kilomètres from La Frontenay, and I have walked all the way. The storm will be at its height ere I can get home again. Think you I would have come, had it not been a matter of life and death?"
She looked the man fearlessly in the eyes. For the first time since she left home more than an hour ago, she realized the enormity of what she had done. Through the partially opened window of the Lodge she could hear men moving and whispering. How many of them there were she could not say. She was here all alone, unknown to every one at home, at the mercy of men who already had every conceivable crime upon their conscience. Not that she feared any violence on their part; she was under the unseen ægis of their new employers, of those who were paying them for the abominable work which was to be done this night. She had no thought of her own personal safety. What she dreaded was the failure of her enterprise, a failure which would result, perhaps, in her being forced to witness that which she would give her life's blood to avert.
"Say what you want, then," said Leroux gruffly, "and get you gone. Madame la Marquise should have known better than to send a comely wench like you philandering at night upon the high roads."
"She had no choice," rejoined Fernande quietly. "She had no one else to send, and she desired me to tell you that you must not think of misinterpreting her words of this afternoon."
"What words?" he queried with a frown.
"Madame la Marquise feared that she had not put it plainly enough to you, that whatever else happened this night, she and all our leaders would hold you responsible for the life and safety of M. de Maurel."
Leroux was silent for a moment or two, but it had seemed to Fernande as if through the open window she had heard a low laugh—one that in the stillness of the night sounded weirdly mirthless and satanic.
"Oho! that's it, is it?" quoth Leroux after a while, with a leer. "Madame la Marquise is suddenly troubled with remorse. The precious son, whom a few hours ago she was ready enough to sacrifice to her own schemes, has suddenly become as the apple of her eye...."
"You must not say that, Leroux," broke in Fernande steadily. "Madame la Marquise never dreamed of sacrificing any of her friends to her schemes—let alone her own son; and apparently she was justified in thinking that you had misinterpreted her thoughts...."
"And you think that she was justified in sending you to plead de Maurel's cause—what?" retorted the creature with a snarl. "But if you have come here, my wench, in order to stand between me and that man, then the sooner you go back home the better it will be for you. You can tell Madame la Marquise that I'll deal with the Maréchal as I choose ... and if he were twenty times her son and twenty times your lover."
"You forget yourself, Leroux," said Fernande with quiet dignity, choosing to ignore the hideous wretch's coarse insult. "You are being paid—and heavily paid, in order that you should do as you are told. When Madame la Marquise gave you the orders for to-night, she did not reckon on M. de Maurel standing in the way of M. de Puisaye's plans. No one can prevent his coming here anon, we know, but his presence here—alone—cannot possibly interfere with any of our plans; therefore, it rests with you to see that no harm comes to him."
Again that muffled laugh, coming from the Lodge, grated ominously on Fernande's ear.
"Well," said Leroux cynically, "if it rests with me to see that no harm comes to the man whom I hate most in all the world, we may as well reckon that Bonaparte will have one Marshal less by to-morrow wherewith to beat the Prussians."
"And you will find," retorted Fernande, who was determined not to allow a hideous sense of foreboding to paralyse her courage, "that if you disregard Madame de Mortain's orders ... if you touch but a hair of M. de Maurel's head, my father and all our chiefs will exact the fullest reprisals from you. And, in Heaven's name, Leroux," she added in more persuasive tones, "will you reflect for one moment? What is there to gain by an act of violence which will redound with unmitigated severity against you? Our chiefs will disclaim any participation in such an outrage, and you will be left to bear the utmost consequences of your own act."
He looked at her for a moment, and his attitude now became so insolent, that, much against her will, a burning flush overspread Fernande's cheeks. After a while he gave a low chuckle and shrugged his shoulders.
"You are, of a truth, in a sad quandary—eh, my girl?" he said. "You dare not go to your sweetheart and tell him to keep out of my way, for fear that he might smell a rat and interfere with your precious friends' plans. At the same time, I for one do not see what else there is left for you to do. Go to him by all means and see if you cannot persuade him to remain quietly at home with you—no harm would come to him then, I promise you that—and he wouldn't be wasting his time, either. But if he chooses to come here and try any of his arrogance upon me, then, by the name of Satan, there'll be trouble ... that is all!"
While the abominable wretch spat out his hideous insults, his ugly face, by the dim light from above, appeared distorted by a significant leer. Fernande now was almost overcome with horror—not at her own helplessness, for, of a truth, she was ready to brave the villain to the last—but at the utter failure of her appeal, and at the certainty that, strive how she might, nothing would move him from his fell purpose. The man meant murder—dastardly, cowardly murder—against a defenceless man; his whole attitude proclaimed it, his words, his awful sneers. And Fernande, feeling now like a poor captive beast on the leash, knew that she was bruising her pride, her heart, her hands against the bond of impotence which she was powerless to tear asunder. The sense of horror had gradually crept into her innermost being—it was paralysing her limbs and her will.
But suddenly the man paused; the impudent leer fled from his face, giving place to an expression of tense excitement. He put up his hand as if to enjoin silence, then placed a grimy finger to his lips.
"Hark!" he whispered.
And Fernande, straining her ears to listen, caught the clicking sound of an iron latch and the creaking of a gate upon its hinges.
"Here comes M. le Maréchal," said Leroux curtly.
At once and with sudden impulse Fernande had drawn back hastily out of the circle of light into the dense shadow cast by the tall storehouse.
"He must not see me here," she whispered hurriedly.
"I thought not," riposted Leroux dryly. "But 'tis too late, my wench, to run that way," he added, seeing that Fernande was ready to fly. "You would fall straight into his arms."
Then, without any warning and before she had time or desire to scream, he seized her wrist, and drawing quite close to her, he whispered in her ear:
"You have just two minutes in which to make up your mind, my girl. Go to the Lodge now, at once, and wait there; he'll go in after you. Talk to him, persuade him, do anything you like. We don't want to hurt him ... curse him!... unless he interferes with us. I'll let my mates out by the back door, then lock you both in together in the Lodge—eh? And you and he would be quite safe and snug," he added, with a chuckle which was far more offensive than any words he might utter, "while we do your party's work out here."
With an exclamation of loathing, Fernande managed to disengage her wrist, and a savage oath escaped the vile creature's lips.
"Well, which is it to be?" he queried fiercely. "Am I to speak with the Maréchal or are you?"
With an almost superhuman effort Fernande contrived to conquer the feeling of sheer physical nausea wherewith this abominable wretch inspired her, and she even succeeded in saying almost calmly under her breath:
"You are to act on the message which I brought you from Madame la Marquise. She and my father, M. de Courson, will hold you responsible for the life of M. de Maurel."
"Tshaw!" he exclaimed contemptuously.
Then suddenly, as the imminence of the catastrophe appeared to come nearer and nearer the while that firm footstep, still a few mètres away, dragged along the flagstones of the yard, Fernande suddenly felt all her pride falling away from her.
"Leroux!" she cried, and she was nothing but an humble suppliant now. She would have gone down on her knees had she thought to mollify him by this act of self-abasement. "Leroux! you would not sully your hands and our cause by such an abominable crime...."
But the whispered words died upon her lips, a hot, evil-smelling hand was summarily pressed against them, and a raucous voice murmured in her ear:
"Silence! He'll hear you! Silence, I say, or I'll strangle you first and shoot him after. Now, then, if you don't want him to see you, slip away round the storehouse; while he argues with me, you can run as far as the gate—and you may thank your stars that I don't happen to have the time or the wish to deal more harshly with you."
He pushed her roughly away from him, and she, feeling faint and sick, was only just able to totter back against the protecting wall of the building. Leroux had already turned his back on her, and suddenly through the gloom she perceived de Maurel's tall figure coming at a quiet, moderate pace across the quadrangle, swinging as he walked a safety lanthorn which he carried.
There was no time now for further pleadings, protests, admonitions; there was no time even to think. Fernande's mind was in a whirl, out of which only one thought remained clear: that she would stay and save Ronnay de Maurel even now if she could.
"They will not dare ... while I stand by," was the one distinct impression which she retained in the midst of her chaotic emotions. She had just time to withdraw within the shelter of a projecting piece of masonry, from whence she could still see Leroux standing in the full light of the tower lamp, defiant and expectant, not twenty paces away from her, and de Maurel approaching slowly, swinging his safety lanthorn in his hand.