Читать книгу A Joyous Adventure - Baroness Orczy - Страница 6

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There was still the château to visit. Its seigneur, the Marquis de Marillac de la Villorée, had been abroad since the dark days of the Revolution when he joined the allied armies which were fighting in the cause of King Louis. But his son René was now a lad of eighteen, quite capable of handling a gun, and the prestige of his name and presence would be valuable to Cottereau and his band. It was known all over Normandy that the de Marillacs were ardently loyal to the King: they had been bitter opponents of the Revolution while it lasted, and almost more bitter still of the usurper Napoleon Bonaparte. Many of Madame la Marquise’s kith and kin had perished on the guillotine during the Reign of Terror; her younger boy Alain was born during the dark year when Louis XVI and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette fell victims to the murder-lust of the Terrorists. The men, therefore, did not doubt for a moment that René de Marillac would give his enthusiastic support to this expedition which was destined to restore King Louis XVIII on the throne of his forbears. It was only Cottereau who, remembering many heated arguments with the domineering Marquise, was a little doubtful of the issue of his present high-handed enterprise; but he said nothing about that to the men. They had given a loud cheer when the château came in sight. There it stood, as it had done for centuries, on the wooded heights, towering above the surrounding landscape, the road and the busy river below, and flanked by the gently undulating hills of the Collines de Normandie, now ablaze with the glory of autumn tints. There was romance in every stone of the stately irregular building: the whole history of France seemed writ upon its façade and its high encircling wall, with its four square bastions and steep pointed roof and the tall wrought-iron gates which gave access to the road.

It was early dawn when Cottereau and his band came to a halt in front of the gates and demanded admittance. They tugged at the bell-chain, and the bell gave a loud clang; but no one came. It was only when Cottereau gave the heavy ironwork a vicious kick that it was discovered that the gate was not locked. It swung open on its rusty hinges, and the men hustled one another through. Cottereau led them up the terraced gardens toward the house, which was closely shuttered.

Neither in the gardens nor the château were there any signs of life. Neglect and decay were apparent everywhere; the paths were overgrown with weeds, fountain and marble statues green with slime, stone steps broken, balustrades fallen in disrepair. An air of settled melancholy and of almost weird silence reigned over this place which, with its gardens and avenues, its park and dependencies, had once been the glory of the country-side. But Cottereau was not the man to pay heed to any of these things. He knew quite well in what a state of penury the proud Marquise and her children had lived for the past few years. But he was not the man to waste sympathy on such trifling matters as a lack of luxury. He himself had given up everything he possessed in the world for the cause which he had at heart. Jacques Cottereau had been a rich man once, a man of good family, belonging to the old landed nobility, and of high consideration in the province. He had sold his land bit by bit, his farms, his house. Homeless, he had taken to the road and the woods, sleeping in huts or in the shelter of a haystack, ill-clothed, unwashed, unkempt and more often hungry than satisfied. But every time he tightened his belt in order to still the pangs of hunger, he would murmur sullenly in his beard: “The time will come when we shall eat our fill and our enemies will starve.”

By force of example he infused courage and power in the men, taught them ruthlessness and utter disregard of self. He was their acknowledged leader, but he shared every danger and every hardship equally with them. Because of this they respected and obeyed him. They feared him, too, but did not love him. At his word they would face death without a murmur, but did it for the King, not for Jacques Cottereau. And he knew that he ruled by fear, but he didn’t care. Like Robespierre and his gang his dictum was: “Terror is the order of the day!”

Consumed by an overweening ambition he nursed the thought that his name would go down to posterity as another Richelieu, as “Cottereau the King Maker.”

And now that he had entered the precincts of the stately château, he trod the garden paths and mounted the terrace steps with the firm tread of a leader of men. He felt that his mission had reached the culmination of its importance. The young Vicomte de Marillac was not only to be pressed into this irregular army but he was to be its nominal leader, in spite of his youth, but with Cottereau as the real head and moving spirit, his aide-de-camp and adviser.

Having reached the topmost terrace the men once more came to a halt. They were now at the foot of the perron which led up by a double flight of marble steps to a delicately wrought and once gilded iron grille. Cottereau called to half a dozen of his most favoured stalwarts and the men followed him up the steps. They tried the grille; it was locked. They banged against it and demanded admittance. Through the delicate ironwork they could just see the vast empty hall with its exquisite marble columns and the few bits of furniture, no doubt priceless, covered with dust sheets, over which the slowly creeping dawn shed its grey mysterious light. After a few moments of banging and shouting, timid shuffling footsteps were heard to approach, and after a moment or two an old man in shirt and faded cloth breeches, his bare feet thrust into shabby buckled shoes, came across the hall.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” he asked in a quaking, timorous voice. No doubt this shouting and this banging reminded him of those awful days of the Terror when soldiers of the Republic would demand admittance in the early dawn in the châteaux around, and when such visits meant domiciliary search in the château, arrest sometimes and often death.

“You know quite well who we are and what we want. Your master has had word,” Cottereau said in his usual dictatorial tone.

“Monsieur le Marquis is abroad—” the old man began.

“We know that,” Cottereau retorted, “but Monsieur le Vicomte is here.”

“A child! Madame la Marquise would never permit...”

“It is not for Madame la Marquise to permit or not to permit. We want Monsieur René. Tell him to come down. But first of all,” Cottereau added roughly, “open these gates or we will break them down.”

“You wouldn’t dare!...” the old man protested. “Madame la Marquise...”

“At it, comrades!” was Cottereau’s curt retort.

Up went the muskets, and the first vigorous hammering shook the delicate grille in its hinges.

“Unlock the gates, Matthieu. Let us hear what these intruders have to say.”

The voice, loud and commanding, was that of a woman. It had risen above the din of the muskets striking against the ironwork. At once the hammering ceased. Matthieu unlocked the gate. It swung open, and the men, somewhat abashed, stepped into the hall. The old respect for their seigneur, innate in every peasant of Normandy and Brittany, caused those who wore hats to doff them and the others to touch their forelock at sight of Madame la Marquise. Most of them knew her, of course, by sight, though many years had gone by since they had worked on Monsieur le Marquis’s estate. Since then sorrow and anxiety, the perpetual fight against gnawing poverty that must at all costs be kept a secret, had blanched Louise de Marillac’s hair and graven deep furrows in her cheeks. She had been beautiful once, her figure had always been commanding and she still held her head high. She was still the grande dame accustomed to receive homage from her subordinates, and even the irascible Cottereau appeared less arrogant, less sure of himself, as he met Madame la Marquise’s haughty stare.

“Now then, Jacques Cottereau,” she commanded, “what’s all this? How dare you present yourself before me at this hour and demand admittance? Have you taken leave of your senses? And who are all these men?”

Louise de Marillac had rasped out these questions one after another. Her cold grey eyes, hard as steel—they had been soft once—swept over Cottereau and his stalwarts with such a glance of scorn that it made the stoutest of them wear suddenly a hang-dog look.

But Cottereau was not the man to allow a sense of intimidation to get the better of him. He was the first to throw off the spell which the presence of Madame la Marquise seemed to have cast over them all. He gave his wide shoulders a shrug and said quite deferentially but firmly:

“You know quite well, Madame la Marquise, why we have come. You have had word from Le Gros. He—we all—expect Monsieur le Vicomte to join us. We want him to lead these men to fight in the King’s cause.”

“Monsieur le Vicomte is too young,” Madame rejoined curtly. “At eighteen years of age a boy cannot be a leader of men.”

“Am I not there to help and advise him?” Cottereau retorted. “And you yourself, Madame, would not wish a de Marillac to be cuddled up at home when all the men in the district are ready to fight for their King.”

“I am the best judge,” Madame said haughtily, “as to what a de Marillac should or should not do. Monsieur le Marquis is fighting for his King. The enterprise which you have in view will do no good to His Majesty’s cause. I have told you that once before, Jacques Cottereau. It will discredit it in the eyes of the world and it will ruin the hopes of his loyal subjects ever to see him on the throne of France.”

“Madame la Marquise...” Cottereau protested.

But Louise de Marillac broke in with stern authority: “I have spoken, Cottereau, and that is my last word. You are a fool indeed to imagine that a de Marillac would join a horde of undisciplined vagabonds who think to serve the King by committing every outrage that brings disgrace upon our province. It is not with intimidation, with highway robbery—aye!—and with murder that His Majesty will be served. Go back to your homes, all of you, and wait in patience until such time as your betters are ready to raise an army that can hold its own against Napoleon Bonaparte and the finest disciplined troops in the world. Then you can begin to talk of loyalty and of fighting for your King.”

When first Madame la Marquise began to speak the men had listened in sullen silence. But when the words “outrage” and “undisciplined vagabonds” struck their ears, when she spoke of “murder” and “highway robbery,” they grew all the more resentful, as the truth of what she said even they themselves could not deny. They were vagabonds, for they were leaving their homes and taking to the road; they were out for highway robbery, as money would have to be got somehow, and the pistols in Cottereau’s belt were a dumb testimony to the acts of murder which they were prepared to commit. Their resentment gave itself vent in murmurs that grew louder and louder while Madame spoke.

“Where is Monsieur le Vicomte?” they demanded.

“To hell with all these arguments!”

“Where is the boy hiding?”

“Sneaking like a coward!”

“Afraid to fight? He—a Marillac!”

“I am for searching the house and dragging the whelp out of his lair.”

Madame disdained both the murmurs and the threats. Having said her say, she turned her back on the men and prepared to sail majestically out of their sight, when a young voice rose suddenly from the top of the stairs at the far end of the hall.

“No one need search for me. I am no coward. I’m not afraid to fight.”

René de Marillac had come running helter-skelter downstairs: a pretty boy, just eighteen, with fair curly hair, a delicate skin and large deep-blue eyes; his cheeks were aflame with unrepressed excitement. He was greeted with a lusty cheer.

“That’s brave, René,” Cottereau cried at the top of his sonorous voice. “I knew you would never play the coward. We’ve come to fetch you. You know why. Are you ready?”

“Yes, yes! I am ready.... That is ... I...”

The boy’s enthusiasm had cooled down all of a sudden, as if a bucketful of cold water had been thrown over a fire, for he had reached the bottom of the stairs and there encountered Madame la Marquise, who was slowly going up. Quietly but very firmly she took him by the hand, and all she said was:

“Come, René!”

Never in all his life had René de Marillac disobeyed his mother. He was a French boy to the core, born and bred in the worship of his parents, and above all of his mother, who to him, as to every Frenchman, is ever a being that is almost sacred. The boy hung his head, ashamed of the tears that had welled to his eyes.

“Let the boy alone, Madame la Marquise!” Cottereau cried aloud.

“Be a man, Monsieur René!” shouted one of the men.

Madame did not say a word. She had gathered her full skirt in one hand; she held René by the other and began mounting the stairs. She did not drag the boy; he just came because mother had commanded, and never in his life had he disobeyed.

“Speak up, Cottereau!” the men urged, “as thou didst to Chatel and the others.”

“Make no difference. Traitors are traitors, whoever they are.”

“Where is thy pistol, Cottereau?”

But Cottereau by this time needed no urging. His temper was up, his fanaticism roused.

“You have heard the men, Madame la Marquise!” he shouted hoarsely. “Traitors are traitors, whoever they are. The word has gone round. Who is not with us is against us. Traitors and cowards we shoot down like dogs.”

But Louise de Marillac paid no heed to these threats. She had spoken her last word, and her contempt for these marauders was too great to allow further argument. She was slowly mounting the stairs holding René by the hand, and the boy followed, obedient and shamefaced.

The next moment a shot rang out which seemed to shake the marble pillars with its terrific sound. It was immediately followed by a heart-rending cry of agony.

Exactly what happened at that early hour in the hall of the château de la Villorée will for ever remain a mystery. Certain it is that one man—not Cottereau—had shouldered his musket and fired. He swore afterwards that he had only meant to discharge it in the air so as to frighten Madame la Marquise. But old Matthieu had seen him raise his gun and had thrown himself blindly against him. The shot went off at the precise moment when Mademoiselle Félise de Marillac appeared upon the top landing, holding her youngest brother, little Monsieur Alain, by the hand. She had come running down from the upper floor, anxious to know what was happening.

The bullet glanced off one of the pillars and hit little Alain in the breast. He fell without a groan into his sister’s arms. It was she who uttered the agonised cry, while Madame ran to her side, and René, overcome with excitement and terror, fell half swooning upon the landing.

To Cottereau’s eternal shame, be it said that he tried to bluster, whilst the man who had fired the fatal shot threw down his musket and fled like one possessed.

The others followed, awed and silent. Cottereau was the last to turn away from the scene of this appalling tragedy. Madame la Marquise had gathered her last-born and best-loved child in her arms. Like an automaton she moved, looking neither to right nor left, her eyes lifeless, like those of a statue carved in stone.

Félise de Marillac was still on her knees; so she had sunk when little Alain fell.

The grey light of dawn played around her fair head, that lovely fair head of hers with the cluster of golden curls nestling above the shell-like ears. She looked like a beautiful wraith, her face—that delicately moulded face of hers—turned upwards, and the grey light of dawn playing around her fair head. Her lips, so obviously fashioned for a smile or a kiss, were tightly pressed together as if to keep back fresh cries of agony, and her eyes—where are the words which can adequately describe her eyes?—blue as is the sky on an evening in June, deep as the depths of the Southern Seas, were fixed upon the familiar scene around: those marble columns, the dust-sheets wrapping the valuable furniture; her eyes gazed on them unseeing, uncomprehending. Had those familiar scenes really witnessed this appalling tragedy? Little Alain—such a child—mother’s Benjamin—dead! Shot by those devils down there! Those miserable, abominable cowards! Those demons in human shape!

And her eyes—blue as is the sky on an evening in June, deep as the depths of the Southern Seas—became suddenly aware of Cottereau and his men. Awed and ashamed, they were slinking out of the grille when Félise de Marillac became aware of them. She struggled to her feet. The swish of her skirts caused Cottereau to pause. He looked back at her, and his feet for the moment seemed rooted to the spot, for she stood there, beautiful and unearthly in the grey light of dawn, with hand outstretched and eyes fixed upon that slinking crowd.

And then she slowly spoke the words which were for ever after to ring in their ears:

“May the curse of God Almighty be upon you and upon your enterprise.”

And thus ended this night of October, 1800, the prelude of that bitter and cruel guerilla warfare which took Napoleon Bonaparte and his magnificent army ten years to subdue.