CHAPTER XIV
DURING THE BOMBARDMENT
Lord Derby was quite right in his conjectures. This is what had happened:—
The troops of Monsieur de Nevers, having made a rapid junction during the night with those of the Duc de Guise, had arrived unexpectedly by forced marches before Fort Ste. Agathe. Three thousand arquebusiers, supported by twenty-five or thirty horsemen, had carried the fort in less than an hour.
Lord Wentworth and Lord Derby reached the fort of Nieullay only in time to see their forces fleeing across the bridge to seek shelter behind the second, stronger line of fortifications of Calais.
But when the first moment of bewilderment had passed, we must admit that Lord Wentworth bore himself valiantly and well. After all, his was a noble soul, in which the pride for which his race was noted had implanted marvellous vigor.
"These Frenchmen must indeed be mad!" he said in perfect seriousness to Lord Derby. "But we will make them pay dear for their madness. Two centuries ago Calais held out a year against the English, and in their hands maintained a siege of ten years. However, we shall have no need to put forth such endurance as that. Before the end of the week, Derby, you will see the enemy beating an inglorious retreat. He has taken everything that he can carry by surprise. Now we are on our guard. So be reassured, and laugh with me at this blunder on the part of Monsieur de Guise."
"Do you mean to send to England for reinforcements?" asked Lord Derby.
"What need is there of doing so?" was the governor's proud reply. "If our reckless foes persist in their rash undertaking, in less than three days, and while Nieullay still holds them in check, all the Spanish and English forces in France will come to our assistance of their own motion. And if these haughty invaders seem to be hopelessly obstinate, why, a message sent to Dover will bring us ten thousand men in twenty-four hours. But until then let us not do them too much honor by showing too much alarm. Our nine hundred soldiers and our strong walls will give them all the work they want. They will not penetrate beyond the bridge of Nieullay!"
Nevertheless, on the following day, January 1, 1558, the French were already masters of that bridge which Lord Wentworth had designated as the utmost limit of their advance. They had opened trenches during the night, and before noon they were battering the bridge to pieces.
It was to the terrible and regular accompaniment of the double cannonading that a solemn and gloomy family drama was being enacted in the old Peuquoy dwelling.
As the urgent questions addressed by Pierre Peuquoy to Gabriel's messenger have doubtless given the reader to understand, Babette had not been able long to hide from her brother and her cousin her tears and their moving cause.
Misery did not indeed come to her by halves, poor child! The reparation which the false Martin-Guerre owed her was due not to herself alone, but to her child as well; for Babette was about to become a mother.
However, when she confessed her fault and its bitter consequences, she did not dare to tell Pierre and Jean that her future was without hope because Martin-Guerre was married.
She hardly admitted it even to her own heart. She would say to herself that it was impossible; that Monsieur d'Exmès must have been mistaken; and that God, who is kind and merciful, would not thus overwhelm and leave without resource a poor, wretched creature whose only fault had been that she had loved too well! She would artlessly repeat this childish reasoning to herself day after day, and would thus still retain some hope. She relied on Martin-Guerre; she relied on Vicomte d'Exmès. Why? Alas! she knew not; but still she hoped on.
Nevertheless, the absolute silence of both master and servant during those never-ending two months had been a fearful blow to her.
She waited with restless impatience, not unmixed with terror, for the 1st of January, which was the extreme limit of time allowed to Vicomte d'Exmès by Pierre Peuquoy.
So it was that the report, vague at first, and afterward indubitable, which spread through the city on December 31, that the French were marching upon Calais, caused her heart to leap with joy unspeakable.
She heard her brother and her cousin say that Vicomte d'Exmès would surely be among the assailants. Then of course Martin-Guerre would be there too; so Babette was justified in her hopes.
Nevertheless, she received with anguish at her heart Pierre Peuquoy's request, on the 1st of January, to come down into the parlor on the first floor, to have some conversation with Jean and himself as to what was best to be done under existing circumstances.
She made her appearance, pale and trembling, before this domestic tribunal, so to speak, which was, however, constituted of only those two men, who had an almost paternal fondness for her.
"My dear cousin, dear brother," she said with faltering voice, "here I am at your commands."
"Be seated, Babette," said Pierre, pointing to a chair which he had placed for her near his own.
Then he continued gently but very gravely,—
"At the beginning of our trouble, Babette, when our urgent questions and our alarm induced you to confess the sad truth to us, I am ashamed to remember that I had not sufficient control of myself to restrain my first impulse of anger and sorrow: I insulted you, I even threatened you; but fortunately for us both, Jean interposed."
"May God bless him for his kindness and his indulgence!" said Babette, turning to her cousin, with her eyes swimming in tears.
"Say no more about it, Babette; say no more about it," rejoined Jean, more moved than he cared to show. "I did very little indeed; and after all, the way to remedy your suffering was not to give you new cause for grief."
"So I finally realized," said Pierre. "Your repentance and your tears touched me too, Babette; my rage melted into pity, and my pity into tenderness; and I forgave you for staining our hitherto stainless name."
"Jesus will be merciful to you as you have been to me, my brother."
"Then, too," continued Pierre, "Jean reminded me that your misery might perhaps not be irreparable, and that he who had led you into error was bound legally and morally to extricate you from it."
Babette held her crimson face still lower. Singularly enough, when another than herself seemed to believe in the possibility of reparation, she herself lost all hope.
Pierre continued,—
"Despite that hope, which I welcomed with delight, of seeing your honor and ours re-established, Martin-Guerre has said never a word, and the messenger sent to Calais by Monsieur d'Exmès a month since brought no news of your seducer. But now the French are before our walls, I presume Vicomte d'Exmès and his squire are among them."
"You may be perfectly sure of that, Pierre," interposed Jean.
"I shall not contradict you, Jean. Let us assume that Monsieur d'Exmès and his squire are at this moment separated from us only by the walls and moats which protect us, or which protect the English, I should say. In that event, if we do see them again, Babette, how do you think that we ought to receive them,—as friends or foes?"
"Whatever you do will be well done, my brother," said Babette, in great alarm at the turn the conversation was taking.
"But, Babette," said her brother, "can you form no idea as to their intentions?"
"Indeed I cannot, God help me! I am simply waiting,—that's all."
"So, then, you don't know whether they are coming to save our honor, or to abandon us to our shame; whether the cannon which are playing an accompaniment to my words announce to us the approach of benefactors whom we ought to bless in our hearts, or treacherous villains who must be punished? Can you not tell me that, Babette?"
"Alas!" said Babette, "why do you ask such questions of me, poor wretched girl that I am, who know nothing except that I must pray and resign myself to my fate?"
"Why do I ask you that question, Babette? You remember what sentiments with regard to France and the French nation were instilled into us by our father. We have never looked upon the English as our fellow-countrymen, but as oppressors; and three months since, no music would have sounded more sweetly in my ears than that which fills them at this moment."
"Ah!" cried Jean, "to me it still sounds like the voice of my country calling me."
"Jean," rejoined Pierre, "the fatherland is nothing more than home on a grand scale; it is an enlargement of the family, an extension of the ties of blood. Ought we to sacrifice to it the lesser ties, the lesser family, the lesser home?"
"Mon Dieu! Pierre, what do you mean?" asked Babette.
"I mean this," Pierre replied: "in the rough plebeian work-stained hands of your brother, Babette, the fate of the city of Calais rests at this moment in all probability. Yes, these poor hands, blackened by my daily toil, have it in their power to deliver the key of France to her king."
"And can they hesitate?" cried Babette, who had imbibed with her mother's milk bitter hatred of the foreign yoke.
"Ah, my noble girl," said Jean, "truly you are deserving of our confidence!"
"Neither my heart nor my hands would hesitate for one moment," Pierre rejoined, "if I had it in my power to restore this fair city to King Henri's own hands, or to his representative, Monsieur le Duc de Guise. But the circumstances are such that we shall be compelled to use Monsieur d'Exmès as intermediary."
"Well, why not?" asked Babette, amazed at receiving such a reason for hesitation.
"Well," said Pierre, "however proud and happy I might be to be associated in so grand an achievement with him who was once our guest, it would be quite as distasteful to me to share the honor with a gentleman lacking bowels of compassion, who has helped to tarnish the honor of our name."
"What! you don't mean Monsieur d'Exmès, who is so kind-hearted and so loyal?"
"It is nevertheless true," said Pierre, "that your confidence in Monsieur d'Exmès, and Martin-Guerre's lack of conscience, have brought about your ruin; and yet you see that they both keep silent."
"But what could Monsieur d'Exmès do or say?" asked Babette.
"He could have sent Martin-Guerre here as soon as he returned to Paris, my sister, and have ordered him to bestow his name upon you! He could have sent his squire here instead of that stranger, and thus have paid the debt due your heart and the money owed to me at the same time."
"No, no; he could not have done that," said honest Babette, sadly shaking her head.
"What! he was not at liberty to give an order to his own servant?"
"What good would have been done by that order?" said Babette.
"What good?" cried Pierre. "Is there no good in atoning fora crime, or in saving a fair name from shame? Are you losing your wits, Babette?"
"Alas! no, unfortunately!" said the poor girl, weeping bitterly. "Those who lose their wits forget."
"Well, then," continued Pierre, "how, if you are in full possession of your reason, can you say that Monsieur d'Exmès has done right in not using his authority to compel your seducer to marry you?"
"To marry me! to marry me! Oh, how could he do so?" said Babette, in despair.
"What is to prevent him, pray?" exclaimed Jean and Pierre, with one voice.
Both had risen by an irresistible impulse. Babette fell upon her knees.
"Oh," she cried in her despair, "forgive me once more, dear brother! I wanted to conceal it from you. I concealed it even from my own heart! But now that you speak of our blighted honor, of France, and Monsieur d'Exmès, and unworthy Martin-Guerre, what can I do? Oh, my brain is in a whirl! You ask me if I am losing my wits. Truly I believe that I am. Come, you, who are calmer than I, tell me if I am mistaken, tell me if I was dreaming, or if what Monsieur d'Exmès told me was really true!"
"What Monsieur d'Exmès told you!" echoed Pierre, in alarm.
"Yes, in his room, the day of his departure, when I asked him to return the ring to Martin. I did not dare confess my fault to him, being a stranger. And yet he ought to have understood me; and if he did understand, how could he have told me?"
"What—what did he tell you? Go on!" cried Pierre.
"Alas! that Martin-Guerre was already married!" said Babette.
"Miserable wretch!" ejaculated Pierre Peuquoy, beside himself, and springing at his sister with uplifted hand.
"Ah! it is true, then!" said the poor child, in a faint voice; "I feel now that it is true."
She fell fainting upon the floor.
Jean had had time to seize Pierre around the waist and hold him back.
"What are you doing, Pierre?" said he, sternly. "It is not the unfortunate victim that you should strike, but the villain who caused her ruin."
"You are right," Pierre responded, already ashamed of his blind rage.
He stepped apart, stern and gloomy, while Jean, leaning over Babette, tried to resuscitate her. There was a long silence.
At last Babette opened her eyes, and seemed to be trying to remember.
"What has happened?" she asked.
She looked up with a wandering expression into the kind face of Jean Peuquoy bending over her.
Strangely enough, Jean seemed not to be very melancholy. There even was to be seen upon his pleasant face, mingled with deep pity, a sort of secret satisfaction.
"My good cousin!" said Babette, giving him her hand.
Jean Peuquoy's first words to the beloved sufferer were,—
"Don't give up hope, Babette; don't give up hope!"
But Babette's eyes fell at this moment upon the sombre and desolate figure of her brother, and she gave a convulsive start, for everything came back to her memory at once.
"Oh, Pierre, forgive me!" she cried.
As Jean made him an appealing gesture to urge him to be pitiful, Pierre advanced to his sister, raised her from the floor, and led her to a seat.
"Don't be alarmed," said he. "I have no ill-will against you. You have suffered too much. Don't be alarmed. I will say to you as Jean did, don't give up hope."
"Ah, what have I to hope for now?" she said.
"No reparation, to be sure, but vengeance, at all events," Pierre replied, frowning.
"And I," whispered Jean,—"I say to you, vengeance and reparation at the same time."
She looked at him in amazement. But before she could question him, Pierre resumed,—
"Once more, my poor sister, I forgive you. Your fault is surely no greater because a cowardly villain has deceived you twice. I love you, Babette, as I have always loved you."
Babette, happy even in her grief, threw herself into her brother's arms.
"However," continued Pierre, when he had embraced her, "my anger is by no means burned out; it is only shifted to other shoulders than yours. I repeat, I would like now to have under my foot that villanous perjurer and scoundrel Martin-Guerre!"
"Dear brother!" Babette interposed piteously.
"No! no pity for him!" cried the stern burgher. "But I owe an apology to his master, Monsieur d'Exmès; frankly, I must admit that."
"I told you so. Pierre," rejoined Jean.
"Yes, Jean, you were right, as you always are, and I was very unjust to a loyal gentleman. Now everything is explained. Nay, more, his very silence shows his delicate tact. Why should he have cruelly reminded us of an irreparable misfortune? I was wrong! And to think that I was almost on the point of allowing myself, through a grievous mistake, to give the lie to all the convictions and instincts of my whole life, and to make my beloved country, which is so dear to my heart, pay the penalty for an offence which never existed!"
"On what slight contingencies do the great events of the world turn!" was Jean Peuquoy's philosophical comment. "However, no harm has been done," he added; "and thanks to what Babette has told us, we know now that Vicomte d'Exmès has done nothing to make him unworthy of our friendship. Oh, I knew his noble heart; for I have never seen aught in him that did not compel my admiration, except his first hesitation when we broached the subject of taking our revenge for the capture of St. Quentin. But that very hesitation, in my opinion, he is endeavoring at this very moment to make amends for in most brilliant fashion."
The brave weaver raised his hand to call their attention to the loud booming of the cannon, which seemed to sound nearer every moment.
"Jean," said Pierre, "do you know what that bombardment is saying to us?"
"It tells us that Monsieur d'Exmès is there," Jean replied.
"Yes; but," he added in his cousin's ear, "it also tells us to 'remember the 5th!'"
"And we will remember it, Pierre, will we not?"
These whispered confidences alarmed Babette, who, with her mind still engrossed with the one thought, murmured,—
"What are they plotting together? Holy Virgin! If Monsieur d'Exmès is there, may God grant that Martin-Guerre be not with him!"
"Martin-Guerre?" Jean rejoined, having overheard her. "Oh, Monsieur d'Exmès must have dismissed the miserable scamp in disgrace! And he will have done well, even from the blackguard's own standpoint; for we would have challenged him and slain him the moment he set foot in Calais, would we not, Pierre?"
"I shall do that in any case," the brother replied in a tone of inflexible determination; "if not at Calais, then at Paris! I certainly shall kill him!"
"Oh," cried Babette, "this retaliation is just what I dreaded! Not for him whom I no longer love, nay, whom I despise, but for you, Pierre, and you, Jean, both so fraternally kind and so devoted to me!"
"So, Babette," said Jean Peuquoy, with emotion, "in a contest between him and me, your prayers would be offered up for me and not for him?"
"Ah," Babette replied, "that one question, Jean, is the most cruel punishment for my fault that you could inflict upon me. How could I hesitate for one instant to-day between you, who are so kind and indulgent to me, and him, so treacherous and so vile?"
"Thanks!" cried Jean. "It does me good to have you say so to me, Babette, and be sure that God will reward you for it."
"For my own part," Pierre rejoined, "I am sure that God will punish the culprit. But let us think no more about him, my cousin," he said to Jean; "for we have much else to do now, and only three days in which to make our preparations. We must go about, notify our friends, get our arms together—"
In a low voice he said once more,—
"Jean, we must remember the 5th!"
A quarter of an hour later, while Babette, in the solitude of her own chamber, was offering her thanks to God, without a clear idea of her reasons for doing so, the armorer and weaver were going about the city, intent upon the business they had in hand.
They seemed to have forgotten Martin-Guerre, who at that moment, we may say in passing, was in utter ignorance of the warm reception which awaited him in the good city of Calais, where he had never before set foot.
Meanwhile the cannon were thundering away incessantly; as Rabutin says, "charging and discharging, with fury inconceivable, their tempest of artillery.”