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The Trampling of the Lilies, a novel by Rafael Sabatini |
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Part 2. The New Rule - Chapter 13. The Road To Liege |
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_ PART II. THE NEW RULE CHAPTER XIII. THE ROAD TO LIEGE "Of what are you thinking, little fool?" asked the Marquise peevishly, her fat face puckered into a hundred wrinkles of ill-humour. "Of nothing in particular, Madame," the girl answered patiently. The Marquise sniffed contemptuously, and glanced through the window of the coach upon the dreary, rain sodden landscape. "Do you call the sometime secretary Citizen-cutthroat La Boulaye, nothing in particular?" she asked. "Ma foi! I wonder that you do not die of self-contempt after what passed between you at Boisvert." "Madame, I was not thinking of him," said Suzanne. "More shame to you, then," was the sour retort, for the Marquise was bent upon disagreeing with her. "Have you a conscience, Suzanne, that you could have played such a Delilah part and never give a thought to the man you have tricked?" "You will make me regret that I told you of it," said the girl quietly. "You are ready enough to regret anything but the act itself. Perhaps you'll be regretting that you did not take a berline at Soignies, as you promised the citizen-scoundrel that you would, and set out to join him?" "It is hardly generous to taunt me so, Madame, I do very bitterly regret what has taken place. But you might do me the justice to remember that what I did I did as much for others as for myself. As much, indeed, for you as for myself." "For me?" echoed the Marquise shrilly. "Tiens, that is droll now! For me? Was it for me that you made love to the citizen-blackguard? Are you so dead to shame that you dare remind me of it?" Mademoiselle sighed, and seemed to shrink back into the shadows of the carriage. Her face was very pale, and her eyes looked sorely troubled. "It is something that to my dying day I shall regret," she murmured. "It was vile, it was unworthy! Yet if I had not used the only weapon to my hand--" She ceased, the Marquise caught the sound of a sob. "What are you weeping for, little fool?" she cried. "As much as anything for what he must think of me when he realises how shamefully I have used him." "And does it matter what the canaille thinks? Shall it matter what the citizen-assassin thinks?" "A little, Madame," she sighed. "He will despise me as I deserve. I almost wish that I could undo it, and go back to that little room at Boisvert the prisoner of that fearful man, Tardivet, or else that--" Again she paused, and the Marquise turned towards her with a gasp. "Or else that what?" she demanded. "Ma foi, it only remains that you should wish you had kept your promise to this scum." "I almost wish it, Madame. I pledged my word to him." "You talk as if you were a man," said her mother; "as if your word was a thing that bound you. It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind. As for this Republican scum--" "You shall not call him that," was the rejoinder, sharply delivered; for Suzanne was roused at last. "He is twenty times more noble and brave than any gentleman, that I have ever met. We owe our liberty to him at this moment, and sufficiently have I wronged him by my actions--" "Fool, what are you saying?" cried the enraged Marquise. "He, more noble and brave than any gentleman that you ever met? He--this kennel-bred citizen-ruffian of a revolutionist? Are you mad, girl, or--" The Marquise paused a moment and took a deep breath that was as a gasp of sudden understanding. "Is it that you are in love with this wretch!" "Madame!" The exclamation was laden with blended wonder, dignity, and horror. "Well?" demanded Madame de Bellecour severely. "Answer me, Suzanne. Are you in love with this La Boulaye?" "Is there the need to answer?" quoth the girl scornfully. "Surely you forget that I am Mademoiselle de Bellecour, daughter of the Marquise de Bellecour, and that this man is of the canaille, else you had never asked the question." With an expression of satisfaction the Marquise was sinking back in the carriage, when of a sudden she sat bolt upright. "Someone is riding very desperately," she cried, a note of alarm ringing in her voice. Above the thud of the coach-horses' hoofs and the rumble of their vehicle sounded now the clatter of someone galloping madly in their wake. Mademoiselle looked from the window into the gathering dusk. "It will be some courier, Madame," she answered calmly. "None other would ride at such a pace." "I shall know no rest until we are safely in a Christian country again," the Marquise complained. The hoof-beats grew nearer, and the dark figure of a horseman dashed suddenly past the window. Simultaneously, a loud, harsh command to halt rang out upon the evening air. The Marquise clutched at her daughter's arm with one hand, whilst with the other she crossed herself, as though their assailant were some emissary of the powers of evil. "Mother in Heaven, deliver us!" she gasped, turning suddenly devout. "Mon Dieu!" cried Mademoiselle, who had recognised the voice that was now haranguing the men on the box--their driver and the ostler of the 'Eagle Inn.' "It is La Boulaye himself." "La Boulaye?" echoed the Marquise. Then, in a frenzy of terror: "There are the pistols there, Suzanne," she cried. "You can shoot. Kill him! Kill him!" The girl's lips came tightly together until her mouth seemed no more than a straight line. Her cheeks grew white as death, but her eyes were brave and resolute. She put forth her hand and seized one of the pistols as the carriage with a final jolt came to a standstill. An instant later the door was dragged open, and La Boulaye stood bowing in the rain with mock ceremoniousness and a very contemptuous smile on his stern mouth. He had dismounted, and flung the reins of his horse over the bough of a tree by the roadside. The Marquise shuddered at sight of him, and sought to shrink farther back into the cushions of the carriage. "Citoyenne," he was saying, very bitterly, "when I made my compact with you yesternight, I did not reckon upon being compelled to ride after you in this fashion. I have some knowledge of the ways of your people, of their full words and empty deeds; but you I was fool enough to trust. By experience we learn. I must ask you to alight, Citoyenne." "To what purpose, Monsieur?" she asked, in a voice which she strove to render cold and steady. "To the purpose that your part of the bargain be carried out. Your mother and your treasure were to find their way into Prussia upon condition that you return with me to France." "It was a bargain of coercion, Monsieur," she answered attempting to brazen it out. "I was a woman in a desperate situation." "Surely your memory is at fault, Citoyenne," he answered, with a politeness that was in itself a mockery. "Your situation was so little desperate that I had offered to effect the rescue both of your mother and yourself without asking any guerdon. Your miserable treasure alone it was that had to be sacrificed. You will recall that the bargain was of your own proposing." There was a pause, during which he stood waiting for her reply. Her blue eyes made an attempt to meet his steady gaze, but failed. Her bosom rose and fell in the intensity of her agitation. "I was a woman distraught, Monsieur. Surely you will not hold me to words uttered in an hour of madness. It was a bargain I had no right to make, for I am no longer free to dispose of myself. I am betrothed to the Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval. The contract has already been signed, and the Vicomte will be meeting us at Treves." It was as if she had struck him, and amazement left him silent a moment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the name she mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest. Then, with an oath: "I care naught for that," he cried. "As God lives, you shall fulfil your word to me." "Monsieur, I refuse," she answered, with finality. "Let me request you to close the door and suffer us to proceed." "Your mother and your treasure may proceed--it was thus we bargained. But you shall come with me. I will be no girl's dupe, no woman's fool, Citoyenne." When he said that he uttered the full truth. There was no love in his voice or in his heart at that moment. Than desire of her nothing was further from his mind. It was his pride that was up in arms, his wounded dignity that cried out to him to avenge himself upon her, and to punish her for having no miserably duped him. That she was unwilling to go with him only served to increase his purpose of taking her, since the more unwilling she was the more would she be punished. "Citoyenne, I am waiting for you to alight," he said peremptorily. "Monsieur, I am very well as I am," she answered him, and leaning slightly from the coach--"Drive on, Blaise," she commanded. But La Boulaye cocked a pistol. "Drive so much as a yard," he threatened "and I'll drive you to the devil." Then, turning once more to Suzanne: "Never in my life, Citoyenne have I employed force to a woman," he said. "I trust that you will not put me to the pain of commencing now." "Stand back, Monsieur," was her imperious answer. But heedless he advanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriage door he leaned forward, to seize her. Then, before he could so much as conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavy horse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the butt of it down with a deadly precision between his brows. He reeled backwards, threw up his arms, and measured his length in the thick grey mud of the road. Her eyes had followed him with a look of horror, and until she saw him lying still on his back did she seem to realise what she had done. "My dear, brave girl," murmured her mother's voice but she never heard it. With a sob she relaxed her grasp of the pistol and let it fall from the carriage. "Shall I drive on, Mademoiselle?" inquired Blaise from the box. But without answering him she had stepped down into the mud, and was standing bare-headed in the rain beside the body of Caron. Silently, she stooped and groped for his heart. It was beating vigorously enough, she thought. She stooped lower and taking him under the arms, she half bore, half dragged him to the side of the road, as if the thin, bare hedge were capable of affording him shelter. There she stood a moment looking down at him. Then with a sob she suddenly stooped, and careless of the eyes observing her, she kissed him full upon the mouth. A second later she fled like a frightened thing back to the carriage, and, closing the door, she called in a strangled voice too drive on. She paid little heed to the praise that was being bestowed upon her by her mother--who had seen nothing of the kiss. But she lay back in her corner of the coach, and now her lashes were wet at the thought of Caron lying out there in the road. Now her cheeks grew red with shame at the thought that she, the nobly-born Mademoiselle de Bellecour, should have allowed even pity to have so far overcome her as to have caused her to touch with her lips the lips of a low-bred revolutionist. _ |
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