Chương Chương 33 · SANCTUARY

. SANCTUARY

Into the late afternoon of that endless day of horror with its perpetual

alarms, its volleying musketry, rolling drums, and distant muttering

of angry multitudes, Mme. de Plougastel and Aline sat waiting in that

handsome house in the Rue du Paradis. It was no longer for Rougane they

waited. They realized that, be the reason what it might--and by now many

reasons must no doubt exist--this friendly messenger would not return.

They waited without knowing for what. They waited for whatever might

betide.

At one time early in the afternoon the roar of battle approached them,

racing swiftly in their direction, swelling each moment in volume and in

horror. It was the frenzied clamour of a multitude drunk with blood and

bent on destruction. Near at hand that fierce wave of humanity checked

in its turbulent progress. Followed blows of pikes upon a door and

imperious calls to open, and thereafter came the rending of timbers,

the shivering of glass, screams of terror blending with screams of rage,

and, running through these shrill sounds, the deeper diapason of bestial

laughter.

It was a hunt of two wretched Swiss guardsmen seeking blindly to escape.

And they were run to earth in a house in the neighbourhood, and there

cruelly done to death by that demoniac mob. The thing accomplished, the

hunters, male and female, forming into a battalion, came swinging down

the Rue du Paradis, chanting the song of Marseilles--a song new to Paris

in those days:

Allons, enfants de la patrie!

Le jour de gloire est arrive

Contre nous de la tyrannie

L’etendard sanglant est leve.

Nearer it came, raucously bawled by some hundreds of voices, a dread

sound that had come so suddenly to displace at least temporarily

the merry, trivial air of the “Ca ira!” which hitherto had been the

revolutionary carillon. Instinctively Mme. de Plougastel and Aline clung

to each other. They had heard the sound of the ravishing of that other

house in the neighbourhood, without knowledge of the reason. What if now

it should be the turn of the Hotel Plougastel! There was no real

cause to fear it, save that amid a turmoil imperfectly understood and

therefore the more awe-inspiring, the worst must be feared always.

The dreadful song so dreadfully sung, and the thunder of heavily shod

feet upon the roughly paved street, passed on and receded. They breathed

again, almost as if a miracle had saved them, to yield to fresh alarm an

instant later, when madame’s young footman, Jacques, the most trusted

of her servants, burst into their presence unceremoniously with a scared

face, bringing the announcement that a man who had just climbed over the

garden wall professed himself a friend of madame’s, and desired to be

brought immediately to her presence.

“But he looks like a sansculotte, madame,” the staunch fellow warned

her.

Her thoughts and hopes leapt at once to Rougane.

“Bring him in,” she commanded breathlessly.

Jacques went out, to return presently accompanied by a tall man in a

long, shabby, and very ample overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that was

turned down all round, and adorned by an enormous tricolour cockade.

This hat he removed as he entered.

Jacques, standing behind him, perceived that his hair, although now

in some disorder, bore signs of having been carefully dressed. It was

clubbed, and it carried some lingering vestiges of powder. The young

footman wondered what it was in the man’s face, which was turned from

him, that should cause his mistress to cry out and recoil. Then he found

himself dismissed abruptly by a gesture.

The newcomer advanced to the middle of the salon, moving like a man

exhausted and breathing hard. There he leaned against a table, across

which he confronted Mme. de Plougastel. And she stood regarding him, a

strange horror in her eyes.

In the background, on a settle at the salon’s far end, sat Aline staring

in bewilderment and some fear at a face which, if unrecognizable through

the mask of blood and dust that smeared it, was yet familiar. And then

the man spoke, and instantly she knew the voice for that of the Marquis

de La Tour d’Azyr.

“My dear friend,” he was saying, “forgive me if I startled you. Forgive

me if I thrust myself in here without leave, at such a time, in such a

manner. But... you see how it is with me. I am a fugitive. In the course

of my distracted flight, not knowing which way to turn for safety, I

thought of you. I told myself that if I could but safely reach your

house, I might find sanctuary.”

“You are in danger?”

“In danger?” Almost he seemed silently to laugh at the unnecessary

question. “If I were to show myself openly in the streets just now, I

might with luck contrive to live for five minutes! My friend, it has

been a massacre. Some few of us escaped from the Tuileries at the end,

to be hunted to death in the streets. I doubt if by this time a single

Swiss survives. They had the worst of it, poor devils. And as for us--my

God! They hate us more than they hate the Swiss. Hence this filthy

disguise.”

He peeled off the shaggy greatcoat, and casting it from him stepped

forth in the black satin that had been the general livery of the hundred

knights of the dagger who had rallied in the Tuileries that morning to

the defence of their king.

His coat was rent across the back, his neckcloth and the ruffles at his

wrists were torn and bloodstained; with his smeared face and disordered

headdress he was terrible to behold. Yet he contrived to carry himself

with his habitual easy assurance, remembered to kiss the trembling hand

which Mme. de Plougastel extended to him in welcome.

“You did well to come to me, Gervais,” she said. “Yes, here is sanctuary

for the present. You will be quite safe, at least for as long as we are

safe. My servants are entirely trustworthy. Sit down and tell me all.”

He obeyed her, collapsing almost into the armchair which she

thrust forward, a man exhausted, whether by physical exertion or by

nerve-strain, or both. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped

some of the blood and dirt from his face.

“It is soon told.” His tone was bitter with the bitterness of despair.

“This, my dear, is the end of us. Plougastel is lucky in being across

the frontier at such a time. Had I not been fool enough to trust those

who to-day have proved themselves utterly unworthy of trust, that is

where I should be myself. My remaining in Paris is the crowning folly

of a life full of follies and mistakes. That I should come to you in

my hour of most urgent need adds point to it.” He laughed in his

bitterness.

Madame moistened her dry lips. “And... and now?” she asked him.

“It only remains to get away as soon as may be, if it is still possible.

Here in France there is no longer any room for us--at least, not above

ground. To-day has proved it.” And then he looked up at her, standing

there beside him so pale and timid, and he smiled. He patted the fine

hand that rested upon the arm of his chair. “My dear Therese, unless you

carry charitableness to the length of giving me to drink, you will

see me perish of thirst under your eyes before ever the canaille has a

chance to finish me.”

She started. “I should have thought of it!” she cried in self-reproach,

and she turned quickly. “Aline,” she begged, “tell Jacques to bring...”

“Aline!” he echoed, interrupting, and swinging round in his turn. Then,

as Aline rose into view, detaching from her background, and he at last

perceived her, he heaved himself abruptly to his weary legs again, and

stood there stiffly bowing to her across the space of gleaming floor.

“Mademoiselle, I had not suspected your presence,” he said, and he

seemed extraordinarily ill-at-ease, a man startled, as if caught in an

illicit act.

“I perceived it, monsieur,” she answered, as she advanced to do madame’s

commission. She paused before him. “From my heart, monsieur, I grieve

that we should meet again in circumstances so very painful.”

Not since the day of his duel with Andre-Louis--the day which had seen

the death and burial of his last hope of winning her--had they stood face

to face.

He checked as if on the point of answering her. His glance strayed to

Mme. de Plougastel, and, oddly reticent for one who could be very glib,

he bowed in silence.

“But sit, monsieur, I beg. You are fatigued.”

“You are gracious to observe it. With your permission, then.” And he

resumed his seat. She continued on her way to the door and passed out

upon her errand.

When presently she returned they had almost unaccountably changed

places. It was Mme. de Plougastel who was seated in that armchair of

brocade and gilt, and M. de La Tour d’Azyr who, despite his lassitude,

was leaning over the back of it talking earnestly, seeming by his

attitude to plead with her. On Aline’s entrance he broke off instantly

and moved away, so that she was left with a sense of having intruded.

Further she observed that the Countess was in tears.

Following her came presently the diligent Jacques, bearing a tray laden

with food and wine. Madame poured for her guest, and he drank a long

draught of the Burgundy, then begged, holding forth his grimy hands,

that he might mend his appearance before sitting down to eat.

He was led away and valeted by Jacques, and when he returned he had

removed from his person the last vestige of the rough handling he had

received. He looked almost his normal self, the disorder in his attire

repaired, calm and dignified and courtly in his bearing, but very pale

and haggard of face, seeming suddenly to have increased in years, to

have reached in appearance the age that was in fact his own.

As he ate and drank--and this with appetite, for as he told them he had

not tasted food since early morning--he entered into the details of the

dreadful events of the day, and gave them the particulars of his own

escape from the Tuileries when all was seen to be lost and when the

Swiss, having burnt their last cartridge, were submitting to wholesale

massacre at the hands of the indescribably furious mob.

“Oh, it was all most ill done,” he ended critically. “We were timid when

we should have been resolute, and resolute at last when it was too late.

That is the history of our side from the beginning of this accursed

struggle. We have lacked proper leadership throughout, and now--as I have

said already--there is an end to us. It but remains to escape, as soon as

we can discover how the thing is to be accomplished.”

Madame told him of the hopes that she had centred upon Rougane.

It lifted him out of his gloom. He was disposed to be optimistic.

“You are wrong to have abandoned that hope,” he assured her. “If this

mayor is so well disposed, he certainly can do as his son promised. But

last night it would have been too late for him to have reached you, and

to-day, assuming that he had come to Paris, almost impossible for him

to win across the streets from the other side. It is most likely that he

will yet come. I pray that he may; for the knowledge that you and Mlle.

de Kercadiou are out of this would comfort me above all.”

“We should take you with us,” said madame.

“Ah! But how?”

“Young Rougane was to bring me permits for three persons--Aline, myself,

and my footman, Jacques. You would take the place of Jacques.”

“Faith, to get out of Paris, madame, there is no man whose place I would

not take.” And he laughed.

Their spirits rose with his and their flagging hopes revived. But as

dusk descended again upon the city, without any sign of the deliverer

they awaited, those hopes began to ebb once more.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr at last pleaded weariness, and begged to be

permitted to withdraw that he might endeavour to take some rest against

whatever might have to be faced in the immediate future. When he had

gone, madame persuaded Aline to go and lie down.

“I will call you, my dear, the moment he arrives,” she said, bravely

maintaining that pretence of a confidence that had by now entirely

evaporated.

Aline kissed her affectionately, and departed, outwardly so calm and

unperturbed as to leave the Countess wondering whether she realized the

peril by which they were surrounded, a peril infinitely increased by the

presence in that house of a man so widely known and detested as M. de La

Tour d’Azyr, a man who was probably being sought for by his enemies at

this moment.

Left alone, madame lay down on a couch in the salon itself, to be

ready for any emergency. It was a hot summer night, and the glass doors

opening upon the luxuriant garden stood wide to admit the air. On that

air came intermittently from the distance sounds of the continuing

horrible activities of the populace, the aftermath of that bloody day.

Mme. de Plougastel lay there, listening to those sounds for upwards of

an hour, thanking Heaven that for the present at least the disturbances

were distant, dreading lest at any moment they should occur nearer at

hand, lest this Bondy section in which her hotel was situated should

become the scene of horrors similar to those whose echoes reached her

ears from other sections away to the south and west.

The couch occupied by the Countess lay in shadow; for all the lights in

that long salon had been extinguished with the exception of a cluster

of candles in a massive silver candle branch placed on a round marquetry

table in the middle of the room--an island of light in the surrounding

gloom.

The timepiece on the overmantel chimed melodiously the hour of ten,

and then, startling in the suddenness with which it broke the immediate

silence, another sound vibrated through the house, and brought madame

to her feet, in a breathless mingling of hope and dread. Some one

was knocking sharply on the door below. Followed moments of agonized

suspense, culminating in the abrupt invasion of the room by the footman

Jacques. He looked round, not seeing his mistress at first.

“Madame! Madame!” he panted, out of breath.

“What is it, Jacques!” Her voice was steady now that the need for

self-control seemed thrust upon her. She advanced from the shadows

into that island of light about the table. “There is a man below. He is

asking... he is demanding to see you at once.”

“A man?” she questioned.

“He... he seems to be an official; at least he wears the sash of office.

And he refuses to give any name; he says that his name would convey

nothing to you. He insists that he must see you in person and at once.”

“An official?” said madame.

“An official,” Jacques repeated. “I would not have admitted him, but

that he demanded it in the name of the Nation. Madame, it is for you to

say what shall be done. Robert is with me. If you wish it... whatever it

may be...”

“My good Jacques, no, no.” She was perfectly composed. “If this man

intended evil, surely he would not come alone. Conduct him to me, and

then beg Mlle. de Kercadiou to join me if she is awake.”

Jacques departed, himself partly reassured. Madame seated herself in the

armchair by the table well within the light. She smoothed her dress with

a mechanical hand. If, as it would seem, her hopes had been futile, so

had her momentary fears. A man on any but an errand of peace would have

brought some following with him, as she had said.

The door opened again, and Jacques reappeared; after him, stepping

briskly past him, came a slight man in a wide-brimmed hat, adorned by a

tricolour cockade. About the waist of an olive-green riding-coat he wore

a broad tricolour sash; a sword hung at his side.

He swept off his hat, and the candlelight glinted on the steel buckle in

front of it. Madame found herself silently regarded by a pair of large,

dark eyes set in a lean, brown face, eyes that were most singularly

intent and searching.

She leaned forward, incredulity swept across her countenance. Then her

eyes kindled, and the colour came creeping back into her pale cheeks.

She rose suddenly. She was trembling.

“Andre-Louis!” she exclaimed.