CHAPTER XXXI
ARNAULD DU THILL'S MEMORY
It was full time that the successful stroke should be accomplished, and the welcome succor be thrown into the town. Day was beginning to break; and Gabriel, completely worn out from having hardly closed his eyes for four days, was taken to the town-hall by the admiral, who gave him the next room to the one he himself occupied. There Gabriel threw himself upon the bed, and slept as if he would never wake.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon before his refreshing slumber, of which the poor youth, with all his anxiety, stood so much in need, was broken by Coligny's entrance. An assault had been made by the enemy during the day and gallantly repulsed, but another was threatened for the next day; and the admiral, who had had every reason thus far to. think well of Gabriel's advice, had come to ask it once more. Gabriel was soon out of bed and ready to receive Coligny.
"Just a word to my squire, Monsieur l'Amiral," said he, "and I am at your service."
"At your convenience, Vicomte d'Exmès," rejoined Coligny. "As the Spanish flag would be flying over this building at this moment but for you, I may well say to you, 'You are at home.'"
Gabriel went to the door, and called Martin-Guerre. He came at once, and Gabriel led him aside.
"My good Martin," said he, "I told you yesterday that I should have hereafter as much confidence in your intelligence as in your loyalty, and I will prove it to you. You must go at once to the ambulance at the Faubourg d'Isle. There you will inquire, not for Madame de Castro, but for the superior of the Benedictines, good Mother Monique; and it is she alone whom you must ask to say to Sister Bénie—you understand, to Sister Bénie—that Vicomte d'Exmès, on a mission at St. Quentin from the king, will call upon her within an hour, and that he entreats her to await him there. You see, Monsieur de Coligny is likely to keep me here some time; and in a matter of life and death, you know, one must always put duty before pleasure. So go, and let her know at least that my heart is with her."
"She shall know it, Monseigneur," said Martin, eagerly; and he was off on the moment, leaving his master somewhat less impatient, as well as easier in his mind.
He made the best of his way to the ambulance at the Faubourg d'Isle, and asked for Sister Monique on all sides with much earnestness of manner.
The superior was pointed out to him.
"Ah, Mother!" said the cunning scamp, approaching her. "I am very glad to find you at last; my poor master would have been so cast down if I had not been able to execute my commission to you and Madame de Castro."
"Who are you, pray, my friend, and whence do you come?" asked the superior, surprised as well as grieved to find that Gabriel had kept so ill the secret she had confided to him.
"I come on behalf of Vicomte d'Exmès," rejoined the false Martin-Guerre, affecting a sort of simple-minded artlessness. "You must know Vicomte d'Exmès, I should think! The whole town is talking of nothing but him."
"To be sure!" said the superior; "I know our deliverer. We have prayed heartily for him. I had the honor of seeing him here yesterday; and I counted on seeing him again to-day after what he said."
"He is coming; yes, his Lordship is coming," continued Arnauld-Martin. "But Monsieur de Coligny delays him; and in his impatience he sent me on in advance to you and to Madame de Castro. Don't be astonished, Mother, that I know that name and pronounce it. Long time loyalty, put to the proof over and over again, justifies my master in trusting as implicitly in me as in himself; and he has no secrets from his trusty and devoted servant. I have only wit and intellect enough, so people say, to love him and protect him; but I have that instinct in good measure, at least, and no one can deny it me, by the relics of Saint Quentin! Oh, pardon me, Mother, for swearing so before you. I didn't realize what I was doing; and habit, you know, and the impulse of the heart—"
"It's all right!" said Mother Monique, smiling; "so Monsieur d'Exmès is coming, is he? He will be very welcome. Sister Bénie is very anxious to see him, to have news of the king, who sent him hither."
"Ha, ha!" Martin laughed in an idiotic way, and said, "The king, who sent him to St. Quentin, but not to Madame Diane, I suppose."
"What do you mean?" asked the superior.
"I say, Madame, that I, who love Vicomte d'Exmès as a master and as a brother, am truly glad that you, a woman so worthy of respect and endowed with such abundant authority, should interest yourself a little in the love-affairs of Monseigneur and Madame de Castro."
"The love-affairs of Madame de Castro!" cried the horrified superior.
"Yes, to be sure," responded the treacherous scoundrel. "Madame Diane must surely have confided everything to you, her real mother and her only friend?"
"She has spoken to me in a vague way of suffering in which her heart was involved," said the nun; "but of an unhallowed love, and of the viscount's name, I know nothing, absolutely nothing."
"Oh, yes, you deny it from modesty, no doubt," rejoined Arnauld, shaking his head very knowingly. "In truth, for my part, I think your conduct is very estimable; and I am very grateful to you for it. You are acting very bravely too! 'Ah!' you said to yourself, 'the king is opposed to the love of these children. Diane's father would be furiously angry if he should suspect that they ever saw each other! Oh, well! I, holy and upright woman that I am, will defy his royal Majesty and his paternal authority, and will lend the poor lovers the sanction of my approval and my character; I will arrange interviews for them, and will give new life to their hope and bid their remorse be still.' Indeed, the assistance you are rendering them is superb, is magnificent, do you understand?"
"Holy Virgin!" was all the superior could say, clasping her hands in terror and amazement, for her heart was timid and her conscience easily alarmed. "Holy Virgin! a father and a king defied, and my name and my life entangled in these intrigues!"
"Hold!" said Arnauld; "I see my master down there now, hurrying to thank you in person for your kind offices, and to ask you, the impatient youth, when and how he can, thanks to you, see his adored mistress once more."
Gabriel did come up at this moment, breathless and eager; but before he reached her side, the superior stopped him with a motion of her hand, and said, drawing herself up to her full height,—
"Not a step farther, and not a word, Monsieur le Vicomte! I know now by what title, and with what intentions, you desire to see Madame de Castro. Do not imagine that hereafter I shall lend a hand to forward your schemes, which are, I fear, unworthy of a gentleman. Besides, not only ought I to decline, but I do not choose, to listen to you any more; furthermore, I intend to use my authority to deprive Diane of every opportunity and every excuse for meeting you, whether in the parlor of the convent or in the ambulances. She is her own mistress, I know, and has not taken the vows which bind her to us; but so long as she thinks fit to remain in the convent, her chosen asylum, she may rely upon my protection to keep her honor safe, and not her love."
With a frigid bow the superior saluted Gabriel, who stood transfixed with astonishment; and then she withdrew without waiting for his reply, and without once turning toward him.
"What does all this mean?" asked the young man of his pretended squire, after a moment of speechless stupefaction.
"I know no more about it than you do, Monseigneur," replied Arnauld, who imposed a mask of consternation upon the delight he really felt. "Madame la Supérieure received me very ill, if I must say so, and declared that she was thoroughly acquainted with your designs, but that it was her duty to oppose them, and to do her best to advance the views of the king, and that Madame Diane no longer loved you, even if she had ever done so."
"Diane loves me no longer!" cried Gabriel, turning pale. "Alas! alas!" he continued, "so much the better perhaps! Meanwhile I wish to see her again, and to prove to her that I am neither indifferent to her nor guilty in her regard. This last interview, which I need to encourage me in my task, it is absolutely necessary that you should help me to obtain, Martin-Guerre."
"Monseigneur knows," replied Arnauld, with humility, "that I am the devoted instrument of his will, and that I obey him in all things, as the hand obeys the head. I will use every effort, as I have done up to this very moment, to procure for Monseigneur the interview which he craves with Madame de Castro."
Thereupon, laughing behind his cape, the crafty scamp followed Gabriel, as he returned in deep dejection to the town-hall.
In the evening, when the false Martin-Guerre, after making a circuit of the fortifications, found himself alone in his room, he drew from his breast a paper which he perused with an appearance of the liveliest satisfaction.
Arnauld du Thill's account with Monsieur le Connétable de Montmorency, from the day when he was forcibly separated from Monseigneur. (This account comprises public as well as private services.)
For having (while held a prisoner after the battle of St. Laurent, and being taken before Philibert Emmanuel) advised that general to release the constable without ransom, upon the specious pretext that Monseigneur would do less harm to the Spaniards with his sword than good by his advice to the king. . . . fifty crowns.
For having escaped by a clever trick from the camp where he was held, and having thus saved Monsieur le Connétable the expense of his ransom, which in his generosity he would not have hesitated to pay in order to recover so faithful and valuable a servant . . . one hundred crowns.
For having skilfully guided by little-known paths the detachment which Vicomte d'Exmès was leading to the relief of St. Quentin and of Monsieur l'Amiral de Coligny, the well-loved nephew of Monsieur le Connétable . . . . . . . . . . . twenty livres.
There was more than one other item in Master Arnauld's list quite as impertinently greedy as these. When he had read them all through, he took his pen, and added the following:—
For having, under the name of Martin-Guerre, entered the service of Vicomte d'Exmès, and while in such service denounced said viscount to the superior of the Benedictines as the lover of Madame de Castro, and thus insured the separation of these two young people, according to the best interests of Monsieur le Connétable . . . two hundred crowns.
"That is not very dear," said Arnauld; "and this last item quite outdoes all the others. The sum total is very satisfactory. It amounts nearly to a thousand livres, and with a little imagination we can put it up to two thousand; and when I have my hand on them, ma foi! I will go out of business, take a wife, and be a good father to my children, and church-warden of my parish somewhere in the provinces, and thus fulfil the dream of my whole life, and the honorable end of all my wicked deeds."
Arnauld went to bed and slept on these virtuous reflections.
The next day he was commissioned by Gabriel to go in search of Diane once more; and we can guess how he acquitted himself of the commission. Leaving Monsieur de Coligny, Gabriel himself began to investigate and make inquiries. But about ten in the morning the enemy made a furious assault; and he had to hasten to the boulevards. As usual, Gabriel performed prodigies of valor, and acted as if he had two lives to lose.
He did have two to save; besides, if he made himself conspicuous by his gallantry, doubtless Diane would hear his name talked of.