CHAPTER IX.
MELUSINA.
Even then, with the daylight about him, he crept into the house under aweight of awe and dread. He left the door ajar that the daylight mightenter with him and dispel the shadows: and when he had crossed thethreshold it was with a pale and frowning face that he advanced to themiddle of the floor, and stood peering round the deserted living-room.No one was stirring above or below, the house and all within it slept:the rushlight stand, its wick long extinguished, remained where he hadset it down in the panic of his flight.
With that exception--he eyed it darkly--no trace of the mysterious eventof the night was visible. The room wore, or minute by minute assumed,its daylight aspect. Nor had he stood long gazing upon it before hebreathed more freely and felt his heart lightened. What was to bethought, what could be thought in the circumstances, he was not preparedto say. But the panic of the night was gone with the darkness; and withit all thought--if in the depths he had really sunk so low--ofrelinquishing the woman he loved to the powers of evil.
To the powers of evil! To a fate as much worse than death as the souland the mind are higher than the body! Was he really face to face withthat? Was this house, so quiet, so peaceful, so commonplace, in realitythe theatre of one of those manifestations of Satan's power which werethe horror of the age? His senses affirmed it, and yet he doubted. Suchthings were, he did not deny it. Few men of the time denied it. Butpresented to him, brought within his experience, they shocked him to thepoint of disbelief. He found that from the thing which he was preparedto admit in the general, he dissented fiercely and instinctively in theparticular.
What, the woman he loved! Was he to believe her delivered, soul andbody, to the power of Satan? Never! All that was sane and wholesome andcourageous in the man rebelled against the thought. He would not believeit. The pots and pans on the hearth, the simple implements of work andlife, on which his eyes alighted wherever he turned them, and to none ofwhich her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between herand her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two abovestairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, hersubmission to contumely and to insult--there must be a reason for these,a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strangeoccurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter,at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered ashe recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of hismemory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her.
He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instantrelaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length hepassed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water andrepaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet,the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through theaperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and acuriosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was tobe seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga hadnot returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it!
He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, andhe stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent.He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of thetop--whence, turning his head a little, he could command thepassage--when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicablethough it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at thefoot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towardshim.
She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retiredat once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance;a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herselfalone, filled him with dread, and with something worse thandread--suspicion.
For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, ifever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked thefruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him.Despair--it seemed to him--rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery,were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, hercheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three sleepless nights, hethought, could not have changed a woman thus--no, nor thrice three; andhe who had seen her last night and saw her now, gazed fascinated andbewildered, asking himself what had happened, what it meant.
Alas, for answer there rose the spectre which he had been striving tolay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, soshocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraftwould account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vilebehests and viler men; for that which he had heard in this house atmidnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for thatwhich he noted in her now! Would account for it; ay, but by fixing herwith a guilt, not of this world, terrible, abnormal: by fixing her witha love of things vile, unspeakable, monstrous, a love that must depriveher life of all joy, all sweetness, all truth, all purity! A guilt and alove that showed her thus!
But thus, for a moment only. The next she espied his face above thelanding-edge, perceived that he watched her, detected, perhaps,something of his feeling. With startling abruptness her featuresunderwent a change. Her cheeks flamed high, her eyes sparkled withresentment. "You!" she cried--and her causeless anger, her impatience ofhis presence, confirmed the dreadful idea he had conceived. "You!" sherepeated. "How dare you come here? How dare you? What are you doinghere? Your room is below. Go down, sir!"
He did not move, but he met her eyes; he tried to read her soul, his ownquaking. And his look, sombre and stern--for he saw a gulf opening athis feet--should have given her pause. Instead, her anger faced him downand mastered him. "Do you hear me?" she flung at him. "Do you hear me?If you have aught to say, if you are not as those others, go down! Godown, and I will hear you there!"
He went down then, giving way to her, and she followed him. She closedthe staircase door behind them; and that done, in the living-room withher he would have spoken. But with a glance at Gentilis' door, shesilenced him, and led the way through the outer door to the open air.The hour was still early, the sun was barely risen. Save for a sentrysleeping at his post on the ramparts, there was no one within sight, andshe crossed the open space to the low wall that looked down upon theRhone. There, in a spot where the partly stripped branches which shadedthe rampart hid them from the windows, she turned to him. "Now," shesaid--there was a smouldering fire in her eyes--"if you have aught tosay to me, say it. Say it now!"
He hesitated. He had had time to think, and he found the burden laidupon him heavy. "I do not know," he answered, "that I have any right tospeak to you."
"Right!" she cried; and let her bitterness have way in that word."Right! Does any stay for that where I am concerned? Or ask my leave, orcrave my will, sir? Right? You have the same right to flout and jeer andscorn me, the same right to watch and play the spy on me, to hearken atmy door, and follow me, that they have! Ay, and the same right to bid mecome and go, and answer at your will, that others have! Do you scruple alittle at beginning?" she continued mockingly. "It will wear off. Itwill come easy by-and-by! For you are like the others!"
"No!"
"You are as the others! You begin as they began!" she repeated, givingthe reins to her indignation. "The day you came, last night even, Ithought you different. I deemed you"--she pressed her hand to her bosomas if she stilled a pain--"other than you are! I confess it. But you aretheir fellow. You begin as they began, by listening on stairs and atdoors, by dogging me and playing eavesdropper, by hearkening to what Isay and do. Right?" she repeated the word bitterly, mockingly, withfierce unhappiness. "You have the right that they have! The same right!"
"Have I?" he asked slowly. His face was sombre and strangely old.
"Yes!"
"Then how did I gain it?" he retorted with a dark look. "How"--his tonewas as gloomy as his face--"did they gain it? Or--he?"
"He?" The flame was gone from her face. She trembled a little.
"Yes, he--Basterga," he replied, his eyes losing no whit of the changein her. "How did he gain the right which he has handed on to others, theright to shame you, to lay hand on you, to treat you as he does? This isa free city. Women are no slaves here. What then is the secret betweenyou and him?" Claude continued grimly. "What is your secret?"
"My secret!" Her passion dwindled under his eyes, under his words.
"Ay," Claude answered, "and his! His secret and yours. What is the thingbetween you and him?" he continued, his eyes fixed on her, "so dark, soweighty, so dangerous, you must needs for it suffer his touch, bear hislook, be smooth to him though you loathe him? What is it?"
"Perhaps--love," she muttered, with a forced smile. But it did notdeceive him.
"You loathe him!" he said.
"I may have loved him--once," she faltered.
"You never loved him," he retorted. All the shyness of youth, all thebashfulness of man with maiden were gone. Under the weight of thatthought, that dreadful thought, he had grown old in a few minutes. Histone was hard, his manner pitiless. "You never loved him!" he repeated,the very immodesty of her excuse confirming his fears. "And I ask you,what is it? What is it that is between you and him? What is it thatgives him this power over you?"
"Nothing," she stammered, pale to the lips.
"Nothing! And was it for nothing that you were startled when you foundme upstairs? When you found me watching you five minutes ago, was it fornothing that you flamed with rage----"
"You had no right to be there."
"No? Yet it was an innocent thing enough--to be there," he answered. "Tobe there, this morning." And then, giving the words all the meaning ofwhich his voice was capable, "To have been there last night," hecontinued, "were a different thing perhaps."
"Were you there?" Her voice was barely audible.
"I was."
It was dreadful to see how she sank under that, how she cringed beforehim, her anger gone, her colour gone, the light fled from her eyes--eyesgrown suddenly secretive. It was a minute, it seemed a minute at least,before she could frame a word, a single word. Then, "What do you know?"she whispered. But for the wall against which she leant, she must havefallen.
"What do I know?"
She nodded, unable to repeat the words.
"I was at the door of Basterga's room last night."
"Last night!"
"Yes. I had the key of his room in my hand. I was putting it into thelock when I heard----"
"Hush!" She stepped forward, she would have put her hand over his mouth."Hush! Hush!"
The terror of her eyes, the glance she cast behind her, echoed the wordmore clearly than her lips. "Hush! Hush!"
He could not bear to look at her. Her voice, her terror, the verydefence she had striven to make confirmed him in his worst suspicions.The thing was too certain, too apparent; in mercy to himself as well asto her, he averted his eyes.
They fell on the hills on which he had gazed that morning barely afortnight earlier, when the autumn haze had mirrored her face; and allhis thoughts, his heart, his fancy had been hers, her prize, her easycapture. And now he dared not look on her face. He could not bear to seeit distorted by the terrors of an evil conscience. Even her words whenshe spoke again jarred on him.
"You knew the voice?" she whispered.
"I did not know it," he answered brokenly. "I knew--whose it was."
"Mine?"
"Yes." He scarcely breathed the word.
She did not cry "Hush!" this time, but she caught her breath; and aftera moment's pause, "Still--you did not recognise it?" she murmured. "Youdid not know that it was my voice?" Could it be that after all she hopedto blind him?
"I did not."
"Thank God!"
"Thank God?" He stared at her, echoing the words in his astonishment.How dared she name the sacred name?
She read his thoughts. "Yes," she said hardily, "why not?"
He turned on her. "Why not?" he cried. "Why not? You dare to thank Him,who last night denied Him? You dare to name His name in the light, whoin the darkness----You! And you are not afraid?"
"Afraid?" she repeated. There was a strange light, almost a smile hewould have deemed it had he thought that possible, in her face, "Nay,perhaps; perhaps. For even the devils, we are told, believe andtremble."
His jaw fell; for a moment he gazed at her in sheer bewilderment. Then,as the full import of her words and her look overwhelmed him, he turnedto the wall and bowed his face on his arms. His whole being shook, hissoul was sick. What was he to say to her? What was he to do? Flee fromher presence as from the presence of Antichrist? Avoid her henceforth ashe valued his soul? Pluck even the memory of her from his mind? Orwrestle with her, argue with her, snatch her from the foul spells andenchantments that now held her, the tool and chosen instrument of theevil one, in their fiendish grip?
He felt a Churchman's horror--Protestant as he was--at the thought of awoman possessed. But for that reason, and because he was in the way ofbecoming a minister, was it not his duty to measure his strength withthe Adversary? Alas! he could conceive of no words, no thoughts, noarguments adequate to that strife. Had he been a Papist he might haveturned with hope, even with pious confidence, to the Holy Stoup, theBell and Book and Candle, to the Relics, and hundred Exorcisms of hisChurch. But the colder and more abstract faith of Calvin, while itadmitted the possibility of such possessions, supplied no weapons of amaterial kind.
He groaned in his impotence, stifled by the unwholesome atmosphere ofhis thoughts. He dared not even ponder too long on what she was whostood beside him; nor peer too closely through the murky veil that hidher being. To do so might be to risk his soul, to become a partner inher guilt. He might conjecture what dark thoughts and dreadful aptitudeslurked behind the girl's gentle mask, he might strive to learn by whatblack arts she had been seduced, what power over visible things had beenthe price of her apostasy, what Sabbath-mark, seal and pledge of thatapostasy she bore--but at what peril! At what risk of soul and body! Hisbrain reeled, his blood raced at the thought.
Such things had lately been, he knew. Had there not been a dreadfuloutbreak in Alsace--Alsace, the neighbour almost of Geneva--within thelast few years. In Thann and Turckheim, places within a couple of days'journey of Geneva, scores had suffered for such practices; and some ofthese not old and ugly, but young and handsome, girls and pages of theCourt and young wives! Had not the most unlikely persons confessed topractices the most dreadful? The most innocent in appearance to thingsunspeakable!
But--with a sudden revulsion of feeling--that was in Alsace, he toldhimself. That was in Alsace! Such things did not happen here at men'selbows! He must have been mad to think it or dream it. And, lifting hishead, he looked about him. The sun had risen higher, the rich vale ofthe Rhone, extended at his feet, lay bathed in air and light andbrightness. The burnished hills, the brown, tilled slopes, the gleamingriver, the fairness of that rare landscape clad in morning freshness,gave the lie to the suspicions he had been indulging, gave the lie,there and then, to possibilities he dared not have denied in school orpulpit. Nature spoke to his heart, and with smiling face denied theunnatural. In Bamberg and Wurzburg and Alsace, but not here! InMagdeburg, but not here! In Edinburgh, but not here! The world of beautyand light and growth on which he looked would have none of the darkdevil's world of which he had been dreaming: the dark devil's worldwhich the sophists and churchmen and the weak-witted of twoscoregenerations had built up!
He turned and looked at her, the scales fallen from his eyes. Though shewas still pale, she had recovered her composure and she met his gazewithout blenching. But now, behind the passive defiance, grave ratherthan sullen, which she presented to his attack, the weakness, thehelplessness, the heart pain of the woman were plain.
He discerned them, and while he hungered for a more explicit denial, fora cry of indignant protest, for a passionate repudiation, he found somecomfort in that look. And his heart spoke. "I do not believe it!" hecried impetuously, in perfect forgetfulness of the
fact that he had notput his charge into words. "I do not--I will not! Only say that it isfalse! And I will say no more."
Her answer was as cold water thrown upon him. "I will tell you nothing,"she answered.
"Why not? Why not?" he cried.
"You ask why not," she answered slowly. "Are you so short of memory? Isit so long since, against my will and prayers, you came into yonderhouse--that you forget what I said and what I did? And what youpromised?"
"My God!" he cried in excitement. "You do not know where you stand! Youdo not know what perils threaten you. This is no time," he continued,holding out his hands to her in growing agitation, "for sticking onscruples or raising trifles. Tell me all!"
"I will tell you nothing!" she replied with the same quiet firmness. "Ihave suffered. I suffer. Can you not suffer a little?"
"Not blasphemy!" he said. "Not that! Tell me"--his voice, his face grewsuppliant--"tell me only that it was not your voice, Anne. Tell me thatit was not you who spoke! Tell me--but that."
"I will tell you nothing!" she answered in the same tone.
"You do not know----"
"I know what it is you have in your mind!" she replied. "What it is youare thinking of me. That they will burn me in the Bourg du Fourpresently, as they burned the girl in Aix last year! As they burned thewoman in Besancon not many months since; I have seen those who saw it.As they did to two women in Zurich--my mother was there! As they did tofive hundred people in Geneva in my grandfather's time. It is that," shecontinued, a strange wild light in her eyes, "that you think they willdo to me?"
"God forbid!" he cried.
"Nay, you may do it, too, if you choose," she answered, gravelyregarding him. "But I do not think you will, for you are young, almostas young as I am, and, having done it, you would have many years to liveand think. You would remember in those years that it was my mother whonursed your father, that it was you who came to us not we to you, thatit was you who promised to aid us, not I who sought your aid! You wouldremember all these things of a morning when you awoke early: andthis--that in the end you gave me up to the law and burned me."
"God forbid!" he cried, and hid his face with his hands. The veryquietness of her speech set an edge on horror. "God forbid!"
"Ay, but men allow!" she answered drearily. "What if I was mad lastnight, and in my madness denied my Maker? I am sane to-day, but I mustburn, if it be known! I must burn!"
"Not by my mouth!" he cried, his brow damp with sweat. "Never, I swearit! If there be guilt, on my head be the guilt!"
"You mean it? You mean that?" she said.
"I do."
"You will be silent?"
"I will."
Her lips parted, hope in her eyes shone--hope which showed how deep herdespair had been. "And you will ask no questions?" she whispered.
"I will ask no questions," he answered. He stifled a sigh.
She drew a deep breath of relief, but she did not thank him. It was athing for which no thanks could be given. She stood a while, sad andthoughtful, reflecting, it seemed, on what had passed; then she turnedslowly and left him, crossed the open space, and entered the house,walking as one under a heavy burden.
And he? He remained, troubled at one time by the yearning to follow andcomfort and cherish her; cast at another into a cold sweat by therecollection of that voice in the night, and the strange ties whichbound her to Basterga. Innocent, it seemed to him, that connection couldnot be. Based on aught but evil it could hardly be. Yet he must endure,witness, cloak it. He must wait, helpless and inactive, the issue of it.He must lie on the rack, drawn one way by love of her, drawn the otherby daily and hourly suspicions, suspicions so strong and so terriblethat even love could hardly cast them out.
For the voice he had heard at midnight, and the horrid laughter, whichgreeted the words of sacrilege--were facts. And her subjection toBasterga, the man of evil past the evil name, was a fact. And her terrorand her avowal were facts. He could not doubt, he could not deny them.Only--he loved her. He loved her even while he doubted her, even whilehe admitted that women as young and as innocent had been guilty of theblackest practices and the most evil arts. He loved her and he suffered:doubting, though he could not abandon her. The air was fresh about him,the world lay sunlit under his eyes. But the beauty of the world had notsaved young and tender women, who on such mornings had walked barefoot,none comforting them, to the fiery expiation of their crimes.Perhaps--perhaps among the thousands who had witnessed their last agony,one man hidden in the crowd, had vainly closed ears and eyes, one manhad died a hundred deaths in one.