CHAPTER V
SEQUEL TO THE MISFORTUNES OF MARTIN-GUERRE
The roads of France were no safer for Gabriel than for his squire; and he was obliged to exert all his wit and quickness of intellect to avoid obstacles and delays. In fact, it was not till the fourth day after leaving Calais, notwithstanding all his haste, that he finally reached Paris.
But the dangers of the journey caused Gabriel less anxiety, on the whole, than his uneasiness with regard to its termination. Although he was not naturally much addicted to dreaming, his lonely journey almost forced him to think unceasingly of his father's captivity and Diane's, of his means of rescuing those dear and cherished beings, of the king's promise, and of what he must do if Henri failed to keep it. But no! It was not to such an end that Henri II. was the first gentleman of Christendom. The fulfilment of his oath was, no doubt, painful to him; very likely he was awaiting Gabriel's return to remind him of it before issuing his pardon to the old count; but surely he would pardon him. And if he did not?
Gabriel, whenever that desolating thought crossed his mind, felt as if a sword were piercing his heart. He would drive his spurs into his horse, and put his hand to his sword; and generally it was the sad and sweet thought of Diane de Castro which would remove his anger and soothe his troubled soul.
It was with a mind harrowed by doubt and anguish that he at last reached the gates of Paris on the morning of the fourth day. He had travelled all night; and the pale light of dawn was just beginning to break as he rode through the streets in the neighborhood of the Louvre.
He drew rein before the royal mansion, still closed and silent, and asked himself whether he should wait there or go on; but his impatience made him loathe the thought of doing nothing. He determined to go at once to his own house, Rue des Jardins St. Paul, where he might at least hope to hear some tidings of what he feared at the same time that he longed to know.
His road thither took him by the frowning turrets of the Châtelet.
He stopped for a moment before the sinister portal. A cold perspiration bedewed his forehead. His past and his future lay hidden behind those humid walls; but Gabriel was not the man to allow his feelings to monopolize much time which he might usefully devote to action. He therefore shook off his gloomy thoughts, and went on his way, saying simply, "Allons!"
When he reached his home, which he had not seen for so long a time, a light was shining through the windows of the lower hall. The zealous Aloyse was already astir.
Gabriel knocked, uttering his name at the same time. Two minutes after he was in the arms of the worthy soul who had been like a mother to him.
"Ah! is it really you, Monseigneur? Is it really you, my own dear boy?"
She could find strength to say no more than that. Gabriel, having embraced her most affectionately, drew back a step or two, the better to look at her.
There was in his look an unspoken question clearer than words could make it.
Aloyse understood, and yet she hung her head, and made no reply.
"Is there no news from the court, then!" the viscount asked at length, as if not content with the answer implied by her silence.
"Nothing, Monseigneur," replied the nurse.
"Oh, I expected as much! If anything had occurred, good or bad, you would not have failed to tell me at the first kiss. Do you know nothing!"
"Alas! no."
"I see how it is," rejoined the young man, bitterly. "I was a prisoner,—dead perhaps! One does not pay his indebtedness to a prisoner, much less to a dead man. But I am here now, alive and free, and there must be a reckoning with me: whether willingly or by force, it must and shall be!"
"Oh, be careful, Monseigneur!" cried Aloyse.
"Have no fear, nurse. Is Monsieur l'Amiral at Paris!"
"Yes, Monseigneur. He has called and sent here ten times to learn if you had returned."
"Good! And Monsieur de Guise?"
"He also has returned. It is to him that the people are looking to repair the misfortunes of France and the suffering of the citizens."
"God grant," said Gabriel, "that he find no sufferings for which there is no remedy!"
"As to Madame de Castro, who was supposed to be dead," continued Aloyse, hurriedly, "Monsieur le Connétable has discovered that she is a prisoner at Calais; and they hope soon to effect her release."
"I knew it, and, like them, I hope so," said Gabriel, meaningly. "But," he resumed, "you say nothing of the reason why my captivity has been so prolonged,—nothing of Martin-Guerre and his delayed return. What has become of Martin, pray?"
"He is here, Monseigneur, the sluggard, the dolt!"
"What! Here? How long has he been here? What is he doing?"
"He is upstairs, in bed and asleep," said Aloyse, who seemed to speak of Martin with some bitterness. "He says that he is not very well, pretending that he has been hanged!"
"Hanged!" cried Gabriel. "For stealing the money for my ransom,—is that it?"
"The money for your ransom, Monseigneur? You just say a word to that threefold idiot about the money for your ransom! You will see what answer he will make. He will not know what you mean. Just imagine, Monseigneur, he arrived here, very eager, and in great haste; and after reading your letter, I counted out to him ten thousand beautiful crowns. Away he went again, without losing a moment. A few days later whom should I see coming back but Martin-Guerre, crestfallen and with a most pitiful expression. He claimed that he had not received a sou from me. Having been taken prisoner himself some time before the fall of St. Quentin, he had no idea, he said, of your whereabouts for three months past. You had intrusted no mission to him. He had been beaten and hung! He had succeeded in making his escape, and had just returned to Paris for the first time since the war. Such are the romances with which Martin-Guerre entertains us from morning till night when your ransom is mentioned."
"Explain yourself, nurse," said Gabriel. "Martin-Guerre could not have appropriated that money, I would take my oath. He surely is not a dishonest man, and he is loyally devoted to me."
"No, Monseigneur, he is not dishonest; but he is mad, I am afraid,—so mad that he hasn't an idea or a memory; sufficiently insane to require care, believe me. Although he may not be vicious yet, he is dangerous, to say the least. I am not the only one who saw him here either, for all your people overwhelm him with their testimony. He really received the ten thousand crowns, which Master Elyot had some difficulty in getting together for me at such short notice."
"Nevertheless," said Gabriel, "Master Elyot must get together as much more, and even more quickly; indeed, I must have a still larger sum. But we need not worry about that at present. It is broad daylight at last. I am going to the Louvre now to speak with the king."
"What, Monseigneur! without a moment's rest?" said Aloyse. "Besides, you forget that it is only seven o'clock and that you would find the doors closed; they are barely opened at nine."
"That's true," said Gabriel,—"two hours more to wait! Give me the patience to wait two hours, O Lord, as I have already waited two months! At all events, I shall be able to find Monsieur de Coligny and Monsieur de Guise," he continued.
"No, for in all likelihood they are at the Louvre," said Aloyse. "Besides, the king doesn't receive before noon, and you cannot see him earlier than that, I fear. So you will have three hours to converse with Monsieur l'Amiral, and Monsieur le Lieutenant-Général of the kingdom,—that, you know, is the new title with which the king at the present grave crisis has clothed Monsieur de Guise. Meanwhile, Monsieur, you surely will not refuse to eat something, and to receive your old and faithful servants, who have so long wished in vain for your return."
Just at this moment—as if to occupy the young man's mind and effectually beguile his weary waiting—Martin-Guerre, apprised doubtless of his master's arrival, burst into the room, paler even from joy than from the suffering he had undergone.
"What! Is it you? Is it really yourself, Monseigneur?" he cried. "Oh, what happiness!"
But Gabriel gave a very cold reception to the poor squire's transports of delight.
"If by good luck I am here at last, Martin," said he, "you must agree that it is not by your efforts: for you did your very best to leave me a prisoner forever."
"What! you too, Monseigneur!" said Martin, in consternation. "You too, instead of putting me right at the first word, as I hoped, accuse me of having had those ten thousand crowns. Who knows what will come next? Perhaps you will even go so far as to say that you commissioned me to receive them and bring them to you?"
"Of course I did," said Gabriel, quite stupefied with surprise.
"So, then," rejoined the poor squire, in a dull voice, "you believe me, Martin-Guerre, to be capable of basely appropriating money which did not belong to me,—money designed to procure my master's liberty?"
"No, Martin, no," replied Gabriel, earnestly, touched by the tone in which his faithful servant spoke. "My suspicions have never, I swear, led me to suspect your honesty; and Aloyse and I were just saying that very thing. But the money was stolen from you or you lost it on the road when you were coming back to me."
"Coming back to you!" echoed Martin. "But where, Monseigneur? Since we left St. Quentin together may God strike me dead if I know where you have been! Where was I to come back to you?"
"At Calais. Martin. However light and foolish your brain may be, you surely can't have forgotten Calais!"
"How in the world could I forget what I never knew?" said Martin-Guerre, calmly.
"Why, you miserable wretch, do you mean to perjure yourself in that matter?" cried Gabriel.
He said in a low voice a few words to the nurse, who thereupon left the room. Then he approached Martin.
"How about Babette, ingrate?" said he.
"Babette! What Babette?" asked the wondering squire.
"The one you ruined, villain."
"Oh, yes!—Gudule!" said Martin. "You are wrong about the name. It is Gudule, Monseigneur, not Babette. Oh, yes, poor girl! But I tell you honestly that I did not lead her astray; she had fallen before. I swear to that."
"What! still another?" rejoined Gabriel. "But this last one I know nothing about; and whoever she may be, she can have no such cause of complaint as Babette Peuquoy."
Martin-Guerre did not dare to lose his patience; but if he had been of equal rank with the viscount, he would not have kept himself so well in hand.
"One moment, Monseigneur," said he. "They all say here that I am mad; and by Saint Martin! I verily believe I shall go mad just from hearing myself called so. However, I still have my reason and my memory, or the deuce take me! And in case of need, Monseigneur, although I have had to undergo harsh treatment and misery sufficient for two,—still, in case of need, I will narrate to you faithfully from point to point everything that has befallen me during the three months that have elapsed since I parted from you. At least," he hastened to add, "so much of it as I remember in my own person."
"To tell the truth, I should be very glad to hear how you account for your extraordinary conduct," said Gabriel.
"Very well! Monseigneur, after we left St. Quentin together to join Monsieur de Vaulpergues's relieving party, and after we had separated, each to take a different road (as you must remember), events happened just as you had foreseen. I fell into the hands of the enemy. I tried, as you had enjoined upon me, to pay my way with impudence; but a most extraordinary thing occurred,—the soldiers claimed to recognize me as having been their prisoner before!"
"Come, come!" said Gabriel, interrupting him; "see how you are wandering already!"
"Oh, Monseigneur," resumed Martin, "in the name of mercy, let me tell my story as I know it! It is difficult for me to understand matters myself. You may criticise when I am done. As soon as the enemy recognized me, Monseigneur, I confess that I resigned myself to my fate; for I knew—and in reality you yourself know as well as I, Monseigneur—that there are two of me, and that very often, and without giving me any warning whatever, my other self makes me do his pleasure. Perhaps I should say, then, 'We accepted our fate;' for hereafter I shall speak of myself—of us, that is—in the plural. Gudule—a pretty little Flemish girl, whom we had carried off—also recognized us, which cost us, I may say parenthetically, a perfect hailstorm of blows. Truly, we ourselves alone failed to recognize ourselves. To tell you all the misery which followed, and into the hands of how many different masters, all endowed with different dialects, your unfortunate squire fell, one after the other, would take too long, Monseigneur."
"Yes; pray shorten your self-condolence."
"I pass over these and worse sufferings. My number two, I was informed, had already escaped once; and they beat me almost to a jelly for his fault. My number one—whose conscience I have in my keeping, and whose martyrdom I am relating to you—succeeded in escaping once more, but was foolish enough to allow himself to be caught, and was left for dead on the spot, notwithstanding which I ran away a third time; but being entrapped a third time, by the double treason of too much wine and a chance acquaintance, I showed fight, and laid about me with all the fury of despair and drunkenness. In short, after having mocked me and tortured me most of the night in most barbarous fashion, my executioners hanged me toward morning.”
"Hanged you!" exclaimed Gabriel, believing that the squire's mania was surely becoming hopeless. "They hanged you, Martin! What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, Monseigneur, that they hoisted me up between earth and sky at the end of a hempen cord, which was firmly attached to a gibbet, otherwise called a gallows; and in all the tongues and patois with which they have belabored my ears that is commonly called being hanged, Monseigneur. Do I make myself clear?"
"None too clear, Martin; for to tell the truth, for a man that has been hanged—"
"I am in pretty good condition now, Monseigneur,—that's a fact; but you have not heard the end of the story yet. My suffering and my rage, when I saw myself being hanged, almost made me lose my consciousness. When I came to myself, I was stretched on the fresh grass, with the cord, which had been cut, still about my neck. Had some soft-hearted passer-by, moved by my plight, chosen to relieve the gallows of its human fruit? My misanthropy actually forbade my thinking that. I am more inclined to believe that some thief must have longed to plunder me, and cut the cord so that he might go through my pockets at his ease. The fact that my wedding-ring and my papers had been stolen justify me, I think, in making that assertion without doing injustice to the human race. However, I had been cut down in time; and despite a slight dislocation of my neck, I succeeded in escaping a fourth time, through woods and across the fields, hiding all day, and travelling with the greatest care at night, living on roots and wild herbs,—a most unsatisfactory diet, to which even the poor cattle must find great difficulty in getting accustomed. At last, after losing my way a hundred times, I succeeded in reaching Paris at the end of a fortnight, and in finding this house, where I arrived twelve days since, and where I have received rather a less hearty welcome than I expected, after such a rough experience. There is my story, Monseigneur."
"Well, now," said Gabriel, "as an offset to this story of yours, I can tell you quite a different one (entirely different, in fact), the details of which I have seen you perform with my own eyes."
"Is it the story of my number two, Monseigneur?" asked Martin, coolly. "Upon my word, if I may make so bold, and if you would be so kind as to tell it to me in a few words, I should be only too glad to hear it."
"Do you mock me, scoundrel?" said Gabriel.
"Oh, Monseigneur knows my profound respect for him! But, strangely enough, this double of mine has caused me a vast deal of trouble, has he not? He has led me into some cruel plights. Well, in spite of all that, I don't know why, but I am greatly interested in him. I believe, upon my word of honor, that in the end I shall be weak enough to love the blackguard!"
"Blackguard indeed!" said Gabriel.
The viscount may have been about to enter upon a catalogue of Arnauld du Thill's misdeeds; but he was interrupted by his nurse, who returned to the room, followed by a man in the garb of a peasant.
"Well, what does this mean?" said Aloyse. "Here is a man who claims that he was sent here to announce your death, Martin-Guerre!”