“You have not hated me?” repeated Louis, and a look of wild surprise blazed up in his dying eyes, and incredulous joy.
Arsène could not speak. He bent over his brother, lying so heavily in his arms, and he kissed that cold wet brow, and pressed his cheek against the fair hair, now wet with blood. “O, forgive me,” he groaned, when he could speak again.
Louis stirred in his arms. Finally, with a last supreme effort, he lifted his right arm and let it fall feebly about Arsène’s neck. He smiled, and closed his eyes. He drew a long and shaking breath, and then appeared not to breathe again.
The two brothers remained like this for several endless moments, clasped in each other’s arms. And then at last Louis’ arm fell away, and he sank into unconsciousness.
Arsène looked up at his father, who was watching them with a strange expression. Streaks of wet black kohl ran over his painted cheeks. He was an old rouged man, trembling and undone.
“I have sent for my physician,” he said, meeting Arsène’s eyes.
“It is too late,” replied Arsène, speaking with difficulty. “He is dying.”
He gazed down at the dying priest in his arms. Louis seemed to be sleeping. There was a faint chill smile on his gray face.
Arsène laid him down, very gently. He saw the gaping and terrified lackeys behind his father. He stood up. It was almost midnight, and he could delay no longer. The wounds in his shoulder were nothing to the aching wound in his heart.
“Stay with him, to the last,” he said, turning to the Marquis. “He loved you.”
The Marquis, not comprehending, nodded his head. He approached his younger son, and stood, looking down at him. And then, with a dwindled sound like a whimper, he knelt and bent over Louis. He did not see Arsène slip away. He heard no far closing of a door.
The hotel was dreadfully still. No life seemed stirring in it. The faces of the lackeys were a painted back-drop. And the Marquis knelt beside his son and chaffed his unconscious hands, which were now as cold as dead stone.
At last Louis stirred, and sighed. He opened his eyes. He looked fully at his father, who bent his head as if in shame. But the Marquis felt a tremor in the hand he held. And now in that malicious and frivolous heart, so malevolent and greedy, a peculiar emotion stirred, as if of boundless grief.
He said: “Louis. Louis, my son.”
At those words, a long quiver passed over the dying man. He tried to raise himself. The Marquis caught him in his arms and pressed him against his breast, and he wept aloud, with a hoarse sound.
But Louis was speaking, in faint gasps: “He must not go! He will be killed. You must stop him, and bring him home. La Rochelle—it will fall, and he will die.”
The Marquis listened, and cried out. He felt Louis’ hands, with a last strength, gripping his own.
“Tonight—he is going. He will die!”
A deathly rattle sounded in his throat, and at that sound, the Marquis’ attention returned to his son. He raised his head upon his black velvet knee. He looked down into the glazing eyes.
“Louis,” he groaned. “Ah, my son!”
With much wildness, he kissed that stony brow, and then the cold lips. A far marble smile appeared on Louis’ face, a smile of supreme happiness. And then, he looked beyond his father, and those filmed eyes suddenly quickened, became alight with ecstasy.
“Marguerite,” he said, clearly and lightly, and his hands lifted for a moment, with humility, with unbelieving rapture.
The Marquis cast a wild confused look over his shoulder. But he did not see what his son was seeing. When he returned to Louis, his son was dead.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Accompanied by four trusted lackeys, the Marquis du Vaubon rode furiously down the dark midnight road towards Longjumeau, which Arsène must inevitably have taken on his swift journey to La Rochelle.
The lackeys were armed, as was the Marquis, for the road was infested by highwaymen. There was no moon, but the stars, swarming like millions of silver bees caught in a silver net, lighted the way with a fugitive and spectral gleam.
The Marquis’ equestrian exploits during the past decade or two had been confined to elegant canters through the Bois on languid steeds. He adored the picturesque aspects of a gentleman upon a horse (with appropriate attitudes). But he knew that the arduous pursuit of his son could not be accomplished on animals intended for effect. Therefore, the horse upon which he grimly rushed through the night had been created by nature for speed and endurance, with the accompanying physical characteristics. Thus, added to his anxiety, his grief, his confusing mental upheavals, was the imposition on tender parts of his anatomy of bony rib and narrow hard saddle. Hardly ten miles had passed before his gloved hand was sore from the reins, and a certain portion of his torso was well blistered. Nevertheless, he did not decrease speed, in spite of a melancholy foreboding that he would suffer abominably later. Moreover, he became aware that he was an old man, for he could hardly breathe in the smothering wind, and exhaustion soon threatened to overpower him. Inclined to asthma, his lungs labored. All his detestation for the country seemed well justified, and he looked at the lonely trees, standing in their star shadows, with disgust and loathing.
So well did he ride, despite these various handicaps, that the lackeys were hard put to it to keep up with him. The necks of the horses strained forward, long and lean, so that they appeared to fly. Their thudding hoofs sounded like drums on the thick soft dust of the road to Longjumeau, and their diffused shadows flew behind them in a disorderly fashion.
As he rode, the Marquis raked the vague dim distance with feverish eyes, for a sign of Arsène. But the road continued to be empty, except for threatening shadows. Arsène had had not more than an hour and a half in his advantage. However, there was not the slightest indication that he had passed this way.
But, thought the Marquis, desperately, he could have taken no other road. Unless, of course, for purposes of concealment, he had taken one less travelled. In that event, the Marquis’ gloomy thoughts continued, he would be compelled to pursue his son to the very gates of that accursed La Rochelle.
It was very bad, that flight, but in the light of Louis’ death, it had its advantages. The fatal conflict between the brothers had been inevitable. But it would have had its very serious consequences. Duelling was forbidden, by order of the King. A murder charge against Arsène was not improbable. The Marquis no longer felt aversion and dislike for Louis, but only a bitter sadness, a feeling of mournful futility. Other, and more spiritual things were bruised in that mad pursuit besides his body.
Two hours flew by in the wake of the galloping horses. Now the animals were panting, for the speed had not abated. The road wound and twisted under the crouching trees. The starlight was so spectral that at times it seemed that they had lost their way.
Then, in the distance, the Marquis saw the faint light of a little tavern, near the roadside. It was possible that Arsène and his companions had paused there for a moment’s refreshment. As they came near the tavern, the Marquis uttered a cry of relief. He saw a number of tethered horses at the side of the tavern, and their heads were hanging low with weariness. One of them he could just barely identify as Arsène’s horse, for there was a vagrant gleam of white about the rump and upon one leg.
The Marquis swung down from his horse, groaned aloud as his buttocks winced with pain. Staggering from side to side, he ran towards the tavern, and flung open the door.
It was a small mean place. A wide fire seemed to fill the dirty room. At various bare tables sat a group of grim young men. Talking rapidly to one or two, was Arsène. By his side sat a young girl. The Marquis’ eye, in spite of his agitation, observed that she had a certain noble beauty. He perceived, as he entered, with a burst of sound, and some curses, that she turned a brilliant blue eye upon him. She wore a heavy dark cloak, and the hood had fallen upon her shoulders, revealing lustrous light hair gleaming with threads of gold in the fire and candlelight. Before all of the men in that
tavern stood bottles of wine and tankards, and a half of ham and some crusty bread.
Arsène looked up, and when he saw his father, he started to his feet with an exclamation. His face was dark and haggard, his lips bloodless. His wounded arm was bandaged, hanging in a sling.
“Ah, now, my fine rascal!” shouted the Marquis, “I have found you at last!”
Arsène looked swiftly at his companions, who rose and bowed, somewhat sheepishly, and with indications of alarm. They glanced at the door, as if expecting that the Marquis was accompanied by a formidable detachment of armed men. The Marquis looked at them, his little black eyes sparkling with anger. He recognized the young gentlemen, whom he knew were members of Les Blanches.
Arsène came forward, trying to scowl, but succeeding only in appearing disturbed. “Father! Why have you come?” He hesitated, then said in a lower voice: “Louis?”
Irate, still panting, the Marquis turned to him. “Your brother is dead. But before he died, he told me your abominable plans, and urged me to pursue you and bring you back, lest you die.”
Arsène did not speak. He looked steadfastly at the floor, and a deep sorrow passed over his face. He sighed. The young gentlemen, and the girl, regarded the Marquis in watchful silence.
“You will return with me at once,” continued the Marquis, and his voice, in spite of its efforts to remain stern, quavered. “But not, certes, to Paris, unless you are desirous, you fool! of arrest and trial for murder. You will go to Gascony.” He fixed the girl with a long hard stare. “In the company of Madame, your wife, who is about to bear you a child.”
Arsène paled still more, if possible. He stared at his father, who stood there before him, in a state of complete disorder. The rouge and kohl were streaked in red and black lines on his wizened face. The wig, which he had neglected to remove in his haste, was tilted rakishly under his hat. He still wore the sleek black velvet and diamonds, but over it was a dusty cloak.
“A child,” muttered Arsène. He did not see the sudden rising of the girl nor did he hear her dim cry. He did not see the faces of his companions, nor the glances, amused or disturbed, which they exchanged with each other.
He, at last, drew a deep and audible breath. He looked at his father with grim resolution.
“I cannot return, my father. I am committed, with all my heart and soul, to this campaign. I attempted to leave, being unwilling to cause you grief and anxiety, without a last word. Nevertheless, all preparations were made. Clarisse is in possession of the keys to my commode, in which you will find letters and directions.” He paused. “I leave Clarisse—and my child—in your hands, and in your care. Do well by them I implore you. Some day, perhaps, I may return—”
“You abandon your wife and son?” exclaimed the Marquis, beginning to tremble. “You foreswear your vows? You will leave them desolate, for a mad adventure, which can end only in death, ruin, or exile? You—you will abandon me?”
“I abandon no one,” said Arsène, through dry lips. “But I am committed to this. I have told you before—there can be no peace for me, until this thing is done. If I am to die, or to flee, it is my fate. I can say nothing more.”
There was silence in the tavern. The Marquis, in despair, implored every cold and obdurate face which was turned to him. Then he cried out, in furious grief:
“You will go with these traitorous wretches, and take up arms against your own people, in the company of foreign malcontents—Germans, Spaniards, English and Italians? Can you not understand that if you do this, you shall see Paris no more, nor those who love you? Do you know this is the end for you? What is Protestanism to you, you foolish adventurer, you bravo? A silly political religion, which has disturbed France for generations!”
Arsène regarded his distraught father sternly. “My grandfather, and your father, died for this silly political religion.’ You, yourself, fought for it. It is no religion to me, but a struggle between darkness and light, between slavery and liberation. I am committed to it with my heart and soul. But you have known this. I can only go forward.”
He suddenly cried out, like a man in extremity: “Is history nothing to you? Cannot even you perceive that the fate of millions of men awaits the decision at La Rochelle, that unborn generations shall know freedom and life if men like me do not retreat, do not abandon the fight? If expediency were the law of all men, the world would continue to wallow in slavery and depravity. Shall I die? I do not know. But it is enough for me that I have fought, and that in my death, some unborn man shall live!”
The Marquis opened his lips to reply furiously, then, seeing how strange, how dark, how moved, was Arsène’s face, he was silent. This was not his son, this stern and resolute man with the fiery eyes and the impetuous gesture. This was not the joyous and frivolous Arsène, the easy cavalier, the laugher, the man of attitudes and postures. This was a stranger, and before him the Marquis felt confused and full of consternation.
Then Arsène held out his free hand, as if in somber pleading: “Do you wish me to live as you have lived?”
The Marquis dropped his eyes; his painted lips twitched. Then, with a last desperate appeal, he turned to the girl, who, so pale and silent, was watching him with fixed blue eyes:
“Mademoiselle, I do not know you! But I have discerned that in some manner you are attached to my son. I implore you to consider! I implore you, if you have regard for him, to return him to his wife, and to the child which is coming.”
The girl did not recoil. Her pallor became even more intense. But she looked at Arsène in silence.
Some pity stirred Arsène for this depraved and broken man. He took his arm gently, and smiled into his face.
“Do not grieve; do not distress yourself. You know I cannot return. You know I must go forward. I ask you to go to the side of Clarisse, and comfort and sustain her. I have done wrongly by her; I should not have married her. I cannot forgive myself. But there are greater things than wife and children. I am committed to them. I beg you to understand.”
The Marquis did not speak. He looked at his son. He moistened his dry rouged lips upon which the paint had dried in ugly flakes, and was peeling. He staggered a little, as if suddenly overcome with weakness. He groped for support, then fell upon a bench. He covered his face with his hands.
Arsène sighed. He looked at his companions, at Cecile, as if for assistance. The young men regarded him with silent reserved faces, but watchfully. Cecile was weeping, her head bent, the tears running down her cheeks. No one helped him. His decision was left in his own hands. Every one was moved, yet no one spoke. The tavern keeper, in a far corner, blinked his eyes in bewilderment, not understanding this strange scene.
Then the Marquis dropped his hands. He had suddenly taken on the aspect of dignity and quiet resolution. Even the streaked paint upon his sunken cheeks could not disperse that dignity, that resolution, and the pride and stillness which accompanied them.
“I cannot move you,” he said, quietly, gazing at his son with brilliant eyes. “Be that as it may. But, if you go, I must go, also.”
Arsène exclaimed incoherently. The Marquis rose. He looked at each and every face in a profound silence. An inscrutable expression appeared on his own. He said, in a hollow but meditative voice:
“Clarisse shall not go without comfort, without sustenance. Madame, her mother, will not fail her. There is nothing for me in Paris. There has never been anything there for me, except you, my son. Do you not understand what I have endured, in myself? Do you think I have had no thoughts? I am old, but I am still not impotent. If you go forward, then I must go, also.”
Arsène opened his lips to protest, then seeing his father’s face, the ghastly pallor of it under the rouge, the strange and unfamiliar firmness of the malicious mouth, the sudden heroic set of his shoulders, and the resolute gleam of the weary eye, he said nothing. But he put his arms about him, and they clung to each other in stern and feverish strength.
Later, as they rode side by side in a darkness which w
as paling towards dawn, Arsène spoke of his dead brother. His voice was low and heavy with sorrow.
“I did not wish him to die. I prayed that I would not kill him, though he tried to kill me.”
“I have learned many things in one hour,” replied the Marquis, in a peculiar tone which was faint with weariness. “He hated you, Arsène. Nevertheless, it was a strange hatred, born of his loneliness. How were we so blind, you, in your amusement, and I, in my detestation? We must bear the knowledge of our indifference, our cruelty, to our graves. But how was it possible to approach him? He was fortressed in his terrible but lonely and desperate soul. What mysterious knowledge is now given to me! I am a foolish and wicked old man, but now I understand so many things.”
“I always knew,” said Arsène, in a low voice, broken and exhausted. “It is my crime that I did not care, except at the last. I tormented him, all his life.” He looked at the milky east, already streaked with fire. “I had no time! But I should have liked to have heard him forgive me.”
“He forgave you, Arsène. He implored me to make you return. He feared for you, for my own grief. How strange it is to realize that he loved me! I must have known; assuredly I knew. But it amused me, and I tortured him for my own pleasure.”
The Marquis paused, overcome. His horse slowed, as his hand slackened on the reins.
“If there had been only a moment’s joy for him, in life,” said Arsène.
The Marquis sighed, then suddenly lifted his head as if a thought had struck him. “Before he died, he said one word: ‘Marguerite!’ And in such a voice, so full of love and delight. I had forgotten this. Was it possible that he loved some woman after all?”
Arsène turned to him, with an odd and startled look. “If he perceived that woman, when he was dying, it is evident that she had died before him. Who is ‘Marguerite?’” He paused, then his face changed and kindled. “Is it possible that it was Marguerite de Tremblant, the sister of Clarisse?”