Kitabı oku: «Denounced», sayfa 18

And still the crowd accompanying them shrieked and howled more and more-fighting and struggling to pass each other; thrusting those in front of them away, elbowing and pushing-the man who had waited all night at Caen playing at cards, throwing another almost under the wheels of Sir Charles's coach, while a girl was borne down in the crush and dragged aside fainting-stamping with glee and excitement, almost dancing in frenzy.

For the bell of the neighbouring church was tolling now, and, through the flakes of snow as they fell, the wheel and the block for the two condemned men were visible on the scaffold.

That scaffold itself was a platform some seven feet high, around which stood a company of the grenadiers, with, on either side of it, a guard of the musketeers. On the left of it was the wheel itself, fixed horizontally between stout wooden supports let into the platform, it being a large cannon-wheel. On the right side was a headsman's block, with, beneath it, a basket filled with sawdust, now half covered by snow. By the wheel and leaning against it was a huge club, iron-bound at the head, and at this sight the crowd became still more excited, if possible, pointing it out to each other and saying, "Behold, la massue. She will do her work well, Ça pese bien," and laughing and screaming once more, and rubbing their hands.

Next came a roar, with shrieks from women and more faintings among them, while, by some impulse unrecognised perhaps by themselves, all of the latter produced their masks and put them on. It may be that something feminine, some feeling of womanly shame, prompted them to hide their features, to disguise their presence there. As for the men, the excitability of their natures affected them in a different way, for at what was happening now some of them, even strangers to each other, shook hands effusively, and some clapped others on the back.

For the condemned ones were in sight.

They came forth together from a small door in the wall of the Hôtel de Ville, side by side, these two who were to suffer; one-he who was to perish on the wheel-being nearly naked, and having on him nothing but a short pair of breeches reaching to his knees and a sleeveless singlet. He was a great, bull-chested man, with massive limbs that would have become a gladiator, and, as he strode along attended by a confessor with a crucifix in his hand, he seemed to the mob to appear like one who would suffer severely. Therefore they roared and shrieked at him, and some waved handkerchiefs and clapped and cried, while he regarded them almost with contempt. Yet there was a glance in his eyes as if he could not comprehend why all these people, whom he saw through the falling flakes, should be thus fantastically dressed and should also be masked.

In truth it was a weird scene in the Place de Grève that morning, with the condemned men approaching the scaffold through the snow, and with, for the greater part of the spectators, these women, through the holes of whose masks their eyes glittered, and whose grotesque costumes were but little suited either to the occasion or the wintry morning.

Yet still there was the other doomed one. He, however, approached the platform very differently from the manner in which the man whose portion was the wheel came forward. He, too, had by his side a confessor with a crucifix-after each there walked the executioners, and also the officials-and it seemed as if he would shelter himself behind the robes of the priest. Yet sometimes, too, he smiled and gibbered at the crowd as though it was composed of his friends, and only when he saw the masked faces of the women and all the quaint garbs of the onlookers did he seem astonished.

At his appearance the crowd appeared startled, the shouts died down; instead of them a whisper ran through their ranks. "He is mad! Il est fou!" they cried, and again some women fainted.

"Great God!" muttered Sir Charles Ames hoarsely, catching sight of him. Then, suddenly, he said: "Kate-Lady Fordingbridge-do not look out; for pity's sake do not!" And to his wife he made signs that she should prevent her friend from glancing at the scaffold.

But he was too late! Already she had done so; already she, peering from the window of the coach, her own face masked, had seen the face of the trembling, grinning wretch; and, since gradually the coachman had edged the carriage through the crowd until it was not now ten paces from the platform, he, too, saw her-the woman with her face disguised-glaring at him.

She herself was nearly fainting at this time, yet she could see the headsman grasp his axe and motion to the victim to kneel down and place his head upon the block, and in her agony she raised her hand to her brow. In doing so it struck and loosened the mask, so that it fell off, leaving her face exposed.

And then the crowd's enjoyment culminated!

For he saw the mask fall away from her-he saw her face.

And with a wild scream-a scream that penetrated to the hearts of all in the Place de Grève-he shrieked:

"Kate! Kate! I have seen him! He forgives! He is a prisoner in-" and fell back, dying, into the executioner's arms.

The frenzied brain had failed at last.

CHAPTER XXVII
AFAR OFF STILL

Kate had been, as already stated, far from well of late; the horrible revelation of that snowy morning brought her near to death's door; and, after she had been taken back to the Prince's house in a prostrate condition and put at once to bed, her life was for some weeks despaired of.

Meanwhile she was carefully ministered to by all the Scotch ladies who formed a part of the establishment, and also by Lady Ames, who refused under any circumstances to quit Paris; though, indeed, her indulgent husband did not press her to do so.

"The King," she said, "may call me a Jacobite, may even prosecute me for one when I return to London, yet I shall not leave Lady Fordingbridge now-no, not even if I have to become an inmate of Charles Edward's house. Oh, the horror of seeing one's husband brought out to such a doom, villain though he was; the horror of it! How shall she ever recover from such a catastrophe?"

"How, indeed?" replied Sir Charles, who, worldling though he was, had been as terribly shocked as she at the end of Fordingbridge's career. "Yet it might have been worse. It was a merciful providence that saw fit to end his life at the moment it did. Think, only think, if, added to all else, she had seen his head fall, as she would have done had he not died at the instant!"

Lady Ames nodded her head reflectively as she agreed with him; then a few moments later she said, speaking from the deep fauteuil in which she was sitting in their lodgings, which they had now taken on the Quai des Théatins so as to be near her:

"You heard his last words? – 'I have seen him. He forgives. He is a prisoner in-' and then died before he could conclude. What, Charles, do you think they pointed to?"

Sir Charles shrugged his shoulders; then he asked significantly, "What does she think they pointed to?"

"Alas!" his wife replied, "she does not refer to them; seems scarcely to have heard them uttered, or, if she did, not to have understood them. Remember, she is but a woman, and, although it is impossible she should regret his death, the horror, the shame of it, has broken her down completely. She longed-any woman would long-to be free of a man who had deceived her from the first as he had done, yet no woman could desire her freedom should come in such an awful form. They say," she continued, sinking her voice to an awestruck whisper, "that he died of fright upon that scaffold."

"Possibly," replied Sir Charles, "possibly. He was a cowardly fellow, as it seemed to me, when Sholto and I had that interview with him in your morning-room. I should not be surprised; other men have died on the scaffold, at the foot of the gallows, before now. Why not he? But," he said, changing the subject, "since we can do nothing, we must be what assistance we can to her. Now, I propose to set about discovering what he was led out to execution for; what his crime was. It must have been something horribly grave to lead to a man of his position being executed in France; for, although no treaty of peace has as yet been signed between them and us, we are no longer at open strife. And if," he added, "France would but send this Stuart packing, and harbour him no longer, a lasting peace might be secured."⁸

"What could it have been, think you?" his wife asked. "Something terrible, to lead to such a conclusion."

"Yes," he replied, "yes. Something terrible."

Then he devoted himself to the task of discovering what that something terrible could have been.

Meanwhile, Kate, after being utterly broken down and lying between life and death for something short of a month, began to mend at last, her naturally fine though delicate constitution enabling her to triumph over the blow she had received. Then she, too, told Lady Ames that she must discover for her own future ease, if not peace of mind, the reason why her wretched husband, after having disappeared for so many months, had met his end in such a way. Also she undeceived her friend in the belief that she had not heard that wretched husband's last words.

"For," she said, "I heard them all, clearly and distinctly. Heard them! I hear them now-at night; all day; as I lie here. 'I have seen him. He forgives. He is a prisoner in-.' And," she continued, laying a white, wan hand on that of the other who sat by her bedside, "I know well enough to whom he referred. It was to Bertie, to Mr. Elphinston."

"Great heavens!" exclaimed Lady Ames, who, in the excitement of all that had happened since that terrible morning, had absolutely forgotten that this other one was also as mysteriously missing as Lord Fordingbridge had been-"great heavens! to Mr. Elphinston. Yes, it must be. Each word would apply to him. O Kate! what does it all mean?"

"God knows what it means; what it points to none can doubt-to the fact that in the prison from which they brought him the other one is incarcerated; though on what charge I cannot dream. Oh, my dear," she exclaimed to her friend, "beg Sir Charles to find out that-those two things, above all: the prison, and the reason why he is detained. Then, when that is discovered, we may do something to obtain his release, since I am known to so many who have influence."

"Yes," Lady Ames acquiesced, "yes; Charles must do that. Yet there are many prisons in Paris where men are kept unknown to the outer world-La Force, Bicêtre, Vincennes, the Bastille. And what can he have done to be sent to any one of them?"

"Heaven alone knows. Yet, in France, men are sent on the most trivial charges, on suspicion alone, sometimes. Oh, I beseech you, ask your husband to discover first where he is, and then we may learn of what he is accused, and do our best to free him."

Sir Charles, with now a clue as to whom the miserable man had referred, prosecuted his researches with great ardour, keeping ever two points before him for elucidation: the first being the reason for which Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and the second the prison from which he had been conducted to the Hôtel de Ville; for, when he had discovered the latter, he would know almost of a surety where Elphinston was. Yet almost as well might he have demanded information of the stones in the streets and have expected to receive an answer, as from those whom, with infinite trouble, he sought out.

Commencing with the English ambassador-who professed himself profoundly ignorant of the execution of Lord Fordingbridge, as well as extremely shocked that such an outrage should have been committed upon a nobleman of our country, no matter what his fault was-he next managed to procure an interview with the Mayor of Paris and with the Prefect of Police, the former a more important functionary then than now. Yet all was useless; he got no further. After many visits to the ambassador, the latter told him plainly that Lord Fordingbridge's death would lead to very little discussion between the two countries; moreover, any discussion was just now to be avoided. France and England were by this time sick of warfare and wanted peace, and the only thing that stood in the way of that peace was the espousal of the Stuart cause by France.

"And," remarked the ambassador quietly to Sir Charles, in a private interview they had together, "the peace will come, and, if I am not deceived, the Stuarts will go. The Chevalier de St. George at Rome knows such to be the case; so does the Prince here; only they do not run away from the storm. Time enough for that when it breaks; anyhow, it won't be particularly hurtful-will only, indeed, lead to a residence in Paris being exchanged for the capital of some other country. Yes, everything points to peace-has begun, indeed, to do so for some time back. Now," and his Excellency leaned forward and spoke very gravely, "this Fordingbridge episode must not disturb that impending peace."

"No one wishes that it should do so," Sir Charles exclaimed; "we only desire a little information. He had a wife, and, although he had behaved as a thorough scoundrel to her, is it not natural that she should wish to know what his crime was, and what prison he was confined in before the morning when he was taken to what was intended for his execution?"

"Perfectly natural," replied the ambassador, with easy grace, "perfectly natural on her part. Only, how is the information to be obtained? I tell you frankly I cannot procure it for you. Lord Fordingbridge was, in London, what they term here 'a suspect'; he was under Government surveillance there; known to be a late Jacobite avowing Hanoverian principles-yet known also, of late, to have been one of the prime movers, if not the prime mover, in the attempted assassination of his Majesty before the invasion. Also he was known-I assure you," the ambassador interjected still more gravely, as he bent forward, "everything was known about him-to be the friend of Charles Edward's followers, yet to be, also, their denouncer. He disappeared from England, no one knew why, closed up his house, wrote to his attorney to say he should probably not return for many years, and also that the lady who had passed as the viscountess was not so in actual fact."

"It was a lie!" exclaimed Sir Charles.

"Without doubt," the diplomatist continued suavely. "I only mention all these things to show you that we need not trouble our soon-to-be-beloved French neighbours about the Viscount Fordingbridge, especially as, after all, it was a higher power than they who slew him. Remember, he plotted to kill the King; he was Hanoverian or Jacobite as it suited him; in fact, Sir Charles, he was contemptible. Let us forget him."

"Everyone is perfectly willing to do so, I assure your Excellency," the baronet replied, in quite as easy a manner as the other was capable of assuming; "he is quite done with on all sides. Only someone else has to be remembered who is supposed to be in the prison he was led out from-someone whose freedom many of us desire to procure."

"An Englishman, of course?"

"Yes. Not precisely so, though. A Scotchman, and-"

"A Jacobite, perhaps?" the ambassador asked with a sweet smile.

"There have been tendencies-"

"Precisely. Good-morning. You can hardly-I protest, Sir Charles, you can hardly expect King George's representative to interest himself in that quarter. Good-morning."

As regards the mayor and the préfet, he arrived no nearer. The former, a rabid hater of all things British, told him that, although he had no knowledge of what persons might be in the various prisons of Paris, he was quite sure that, if any Englishmen were incarcerated, they deserved to be. The préfet, more politely but with equal firmness, said he also was not aware of what English people might be detained in the prisons, but that, even if he possessed the knowledge, he should not consider it his duty to give any information on the subject.

Then Kate, by this time recovered somewhat from the shock of her husband's death, and, although she knew it not, rapidly mending in health through the knowledge of the freedom that was now hers undoubtedly, determined that she would lose no opportunity of herself discovering where Bertie Elphinston was incarcerated; for that Fordingbridge had spoken the truth in his last moments, half mad though he seemed, she never had the faintest shadow of a doubt.

First she wrote, as was natural, to Archibald Sholto, telling him everything exactly as it occurred from the ending of the ball at the opera house to Fordingbridge's last words. Also she asked him to discover, if possible, for what crime her husband had been condemned to death. Above all, she begged him to find out from what prison he had been led to the Hôtel de Ville on the morning of his execution. "Because," she wrote, "in that prison Bertie Elphinston, your friend, your murdered brother's friend, will be found."

Her letter reached Father Sholto at St. Omer, to which he had removed from Amiens, and for some weeks he did not answer it; while, when he did so, he simply wrote to say that he would endeavour to find out the reason why Bertie should be incarcerated in the prison from which Fordingbridge had been brought forth.

"'Tis a cold answer at best," he muttered to himself one evening, as he paced along the marshy swamps around St. Omer, unobservant of the ripening fruit in the rich orchards all about, and even of the glorious sunset behind him-"a cold answer, yet what else to make? I cannot tell her that it must be the Bastille in which Bertie is confined. Merciful Father in heaven!" he broke off, "what can he have done to be there? Because it was to the Bastille that I, determined never to loose my hold on Douglas's murderer, procured he should be sent. Also I dread to tell her what Fordingbridge's crime was, who the avenger of that crime is. I dread! I dread! It is more than I have strength to dare."

Still pacing the marshes, he turned over and over again in his mind all that he had pondered on for so long, with-now added to all that-the fresh knowledge derived through Kate that Elphinston was in the Bastille.

"In the Bastille! the Bastille! So that is where he disappeared to without leaving a trace, a sign behind him. To the Bastille! It seems incredible. What could he have done? A good officer, a favourite with all. It is indeed incredible."

Still musing, he approached the town, to be aroused from his meditations, in spite of himself, by the clash of arms from the guard being relieved at the gates, and by the blare of some trumpets from the walls. They seemed to chide him, he thought, for being so inactive; they seemed to reproach him for meditating so much and for doing so little.

"Only," he murmured as he almost wrung his hands, "what-what shall I do? He is in the Bastille, and, though I could send that other one to the same fortress, I have no power to obtain this one's release. Who can help me? To whom shall I apply?"

At last, tossing on his bed as he had so often wearily tossed before, he thought of Tencin. The cardinal, he knew, was no longer in the greatest favour, and had been sent back to his archbishopric as a punishment; yet he could not be the Primate of France and still be without some influence. If he could do nothing else, he could at least find out on what charge Elphinston, an officer of the King's army, had thus been thrown into prison. So he sat down and wrote to monseigneur.

Of course more weeks passed thus-long ones to the poor prisoner in the calotte, and almost as long to the woman outside who loved him so, and to the man at St. Omer who was doing his best for him; then, at last, the archbishop wrote, but could tell nothing. He was, he said, astonished that such a thing could be. The Scotch officers had served the King faithfully without exception; it was incredible that one could be thus incarcerated. The only thing his Eminence could suppose was that Elphinston must have mortally wounded or angered someone of high position at court-someone much in favour with the King himself, and able to procure a lettre de cachet from him without any questions whatever being asked. He could imagine nothing else but that. Then, having given vent to his surmise, he proceeded to suggest to Sholto the very best steps he could take.

"Of all men," his Eminence wrote, "there is none for your purpose like D'Argenson. As you know, all the family are of the same trade-lieutenants of police, Presidents of Parliament, judges; and the present one, like his father before him, is not only one of his Majesty's chief judges, but also the chief Examiner of the internes of the Bastille. The family is high in the world now, but some generations back were low-forget not that. Yet, neither will your remembrance of it have weight with D'Argenson. He has a heart of marble if he has any heart at all, but with it a sense of justice that it is impossible to excel. If Captain Elphinston is falsely detained, or detained in error, D'Argenson will set the matter right, though he may take months to do it."

"Though he may take months to do it." Alas! it soon seemed to Archibald Sholto that he was more like to take years. He had got into communication with this important personage through the influence of the cardinal, but once in communication had advanced, or seemed to advance, no further. The judge wrote in his tablets, it is true, the name of Elphinston, and said that if he were in any prison in France he would take care that his case was inquired into sooner or later. Beyond that he refused to say another word.

And with this Sholto had to be content, and to try and persuade himself that it was at least something toward the desired end. Also he wrote to Kate, saying that it was from the Bastille that Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and that therefore doubtless it was the Bastille in which Bertie was. And he bade her be of good heart and hope for the best, since one of the principal examiners of prisoners detained in the prisons had promised that his case should be inquired into.

"Though he may take months to do it!" the cardinal had said. Verily it seemed as if he had indeed known the man of whom he wrote.

For the months passed away outside the Bastille as they were passing away inside, and to those without there came no news of him within; so that, at last, Kate was led almost to believe that, as her husband had lied to her from the very beginning, so he had lied to her at the end. For it seemed to her that if Bertie had ever been in the gloomy fortress, by which she now so often walked and to which she went and stood before and gazed upon, he must have been released ere this, or in some way have found an opportunity of communicating with her.