Читать книгу The Greatest Historical Novels - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 63

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In the outskirts of the hamlet of Charonne, between four and five miles from Paris, on the very edge of the Park of Bagnolet, the Baron de Batz possessed a pleasant little property, which had once, in the days of the Regency, been a hunting pavilion. It was tenanted in 1793 by the talented Babette de Grandmaison, who until lately had been a singer at the Italian Theatre. The property was nominally owned by her brother Burette, who was the postmaster of Beauvais. Burette was no more than a mask for the Baron de Batz. Foreseeing that the property of the nobles, whether they emigrated or remained in France, was doomed to confiscation, and acting with that foresight which usually enabled him to carry out his undertakings with safety, if not always with success, the Baron had made a simulated sale of this property to Burette, who was not likely to be molested in his possessions.

In this country retreat on the day after the miscarried attempt to save the Queen, the survivors of the rough-and-tumble in the Rue Charlot were assembled with de Batz.

The Baron had succeeded last night in finding shelter at No. 12, where, some hours later, when the alarm had died down, the others had come, one by one, to join him. They had remained there until morning. Then, because he had deemed it prudent to disappear from Paris for some days, he had made his way to Charonne, quitting Paris by the Enfer Barrier rather than by that of the Bastille which led directly to the Charonne road. Thither he had bidden his companions to follow him severally, and thither they had safely come.

Langéac had arrived late in the afternoon, some hours after the others, for Langéac accounted it his duty to inform the Chevalier de Pomelles, who was d'Entragues's chief agent in Paris—the head of the royalist committee which d'Entragues had established there—of last night's events.

Langéac found de Batz at table with Devaux, Boissancourt, La Guiche, and Roussel. Babette de Grandmaison was also present, a dark, handsome young woman who belonged body and soul to the Baron and who shared now the dejection which, whilst general, sat most heavily upon de Batz. As much as by the exasperating failure of his cherished plot and by the apparently fortuitous wrecking of plans so carefully prepared was de Batz now troubled by the fate of André-Louis whom he had come to love and to whose gallant stand he owed his own escape.

Langéac's arrival aroused the hope of news. De Batz started up eagerly as the young man entered. Langéac met his anxious questions with a shrug.

'I have no definite news. But there is no ground for any hope.'

De Batz displayed a fierce impatience. He was white, his eyes blood-injected.

'Is he alive, at least?'

Langéac was entirely pessimistic, and rather languid. 'Does it matter? For his own sake I hope that he is not. It will be the guillotine for him if he has survived. That is inevitable.'

De Batz was beyond being civil. 'Devil take your assumptions! I do not ask for them. I ask for facts. If you have been unable to glean any, say so, and I'll employ someone else to obtain them, or else go myself.'

Langéac's lips tightened sulkily. 'I have already told you that I bring no news.'

'I should have known you wouldn't. You're so damned careful of your skin, Langéac. Will you tell me what you've been doing all these hours in Paris?'

Langéac faced him across the table. 'I've not been taking care of my skin, sir. And I resent your words. You have no right to use them to me.'

'I care nothing about your resentments.' The Baron rapped his knuckles on the table. 'I ask you what you have been doing in Paris. All that it imported me to know is whether Moreau is alive.'

The gigantic, and rather phlegmatic, Boissancourt, beside whose chair Langéac was standing, leaned across to set a hand on the Baron's arm. 'Patience, de Batz, my friend,' he boomed in his great voice. 'You have already been answered. After all, Langéac can't work miracles.'

The hawk-faced, impetuous young Marquis de la Guiche agreed with bitterly ironical vehemence. 'That's the truth, by God!'

Devaux sought to keep the peace. 'The fact is, Langéac, we are all a little fretted.'

De Batz shrugged impatiently, and set himself to pace the room in line with the three long windows that stood open to the lawn. Babette's handsome eyes followed him, pain and anxiety in their dark depths. Then she looked up at the resentful newcomer with a sad little smile.

'You are standing, Monsieur de Langéac. Sit down and give yourself something to eat. You will be tired and hungry.'

'Tired, yes. God knows I'm tired. But too sick at heart for hunger. I thank you, mademoiselle.' He flung himself into a chair, stretching his dusty legs under the table. He, too, was pale, his red-brown hair dishevelled. 'Give me some wine, Devaux.'

Devaux passed him the bottle, whilst de Batz continued to pace, like a caged animal. At last he halted.

'I must know,' he announced. 'I can't bear any more of this uncertainty.'

'Unfortunately,' said Devaux, 'Langéac is right. There is no uncertainty. Oh, spare me your scowls, de Batz. God knows I am as sick at heart as you are. But facts must be faced, and we must count our losses without self-deception. Larnache was killed, and, if Moreau wasn't, he soon will be. He is lost. Irrevocably.'

De Batz swore viciously. 'If he's not dead,' he added, 'I'll get him out of their hands somehow.'

'If you try,' said Devaux, 'you will merely thrust your own head through the window of the guillotine, and you owe it to us all and to the cause not to do that. Come to your senses, man. This is not a matter in which you can interfere. Not all the influence you can command—not if you had twenty times the influence you have—could you do anything. If you attempt it, you'll doom yourself by betraying your share in last night's events, which rests at present on the word of only one man who could easily be shown to have been mistaken in the dark. Resign yourself, my friend. There are no battles without casualties.'

De Batz sat down and took his head in his hands. There was a lugubrious silence. Devaux, himself a member of a government department, spoke with authority. Moreover, he was known for a man of calm, clear judgment. Boissancourt and Roussel confirmed his words. The Marquis de la Guiche, however, was more of the temper of de Batz.

'If we knew at least how this thing happened,' he exclaimed. 'Was it just blundering Fate that intervened, or was there betrayal?' He turned to Langéac. 'You did not think of seeking news of Michonis at his house?'

'You may call me a coward for that,' the young man answered. 'But, frankly, I dared not. If there was betrayal, the house of Michonis would be a trap for any of us.'

The Baron's face remained sternly inscrutable.

'You have not yet told us what actually you did in Paris.'

'I went to the Rue de Ménars, and I saw Tissot. There had been no domiciliary visit there, which at least is hopeful; for in the event of betrayal that is where investigations must have begun.'

The Baron nodded. 'Yes. Well? After that?'

'After that I sought Pomelles.'

La Guiche flung him a fresh sneer.

'Oh, of course you must report our failure to d'Entragues's committee.'

'You will remember, Monsieur le Marquis, that, after all, I am d'Entragues's man.'

'I should like you better if I could forget it, Langéac,' said de Batz. 'What had Pomelles to say?'

'I am required to start for Hamm at once, to report the event.'

At this the Baron's barely suppressed fury burst forth again.

'Ah, that, for instance! To be sure he'll be in haste to have my failure reported, and your friend d'Entragues will rub his hands over it. When do you start?'

'Tonight, if you offer no objection.'

'I? Offer objection? To your departure? My good Langéac, I have never yet discovered a use for you. I thought I had last night. But you have shown me how ridiculous was the assumption. Oh, you may go to Hamm or to Hell when you please.'

Langéac got up. 'De Batz, you are intolerable.'

'Report it with the rest.'

Langéac was shaking with indignation. 'You make me glad that our association is at an end.'

'Then we are both pleased, Langéac. A safe journey to you.'