XX
Bibi’s orders to Louise had been to go back to the inn and there to wait until he came in his calèche to take them home to Lou Mas. And the two women ready for the journey home, so tired that only excitement kept them from breaking down, waited for him patiently in the parlour downstairs.
The travellers who had arrived in the early morning by the old coche, had all disappeared by now, some had found accommodation at the Chat Noir, others had gone to their homes or to friends in the city: the hour for dinner was not yet, and the personnel of the inn was busy in the kitchen.
The place was deserted and silent; the room itself hot and stuffy. The air was heavy with the mingled odour of dust, stale grease and boiled food. Up on the wall a large white-faced clock ticked with noisy monotony, and against the small windowpane a lazy fly kept up an intermittent buzz. Now and again from a remote part of the house came the sound of a human voice or the barking of a dog, or the rattling of pots and pans.
Louise, sitting in a large, old-fashioned armchair by the side of the great hearth, had closed her eyes. The monotonous ticking of the clock, the buzzing of the fly, the heat and the silence lulled her to sleep. Fleurette, on a straight-backed chair, sat wide awake, unable to keep her eyes closed even for a few minutes, although they ached terribly and she was very, very tired. But there was so much to keep her brain busy. In the past four days more exciting events had been crowded into her life than in all the eighteen years that lay behind her. And round and round they went—these events—beginning with the first sight of the squad of soldiers marching down the high road and coming to a halt on the bridge, until the happy moment when Bibi had assured her that M’sieu’ Amédé was safe and free, under the protection of that mysterious personage whom Bibi called an impudent spy and enemy of France, but whom she, Fleurette, believed to be an agent of the bon Dieu Himself.
It seemed a part of her confused thoughts, presently, when she saw the door of the parlour slowly open and the kind soldier who had conducted her to Bibi standing in the doorway. He cast a quick glance all over the room, and as Fleurette was obviously on the point of uttering a cry of surprise, he put up a warning finger to his lips and then beckoned to her to come. She rose, eager as well as mystified, and once more he made a gesture of warning, pointing to Louise and then raising a finger to his lips. A warning it was to make no noise, and not to waken Louise. Fleurette tiptoed across the room to him.
“Your father sent me round,” he said in a whisper.
He beckoned to her to come outside. She cast a last look at Louise who was obviously peacefully asleep, and then slipped out past him into the street.
“There is something your father forgot to say to you,” the soldier said as soon as he had closed the door behind Fleurette. “But he told me not to bring the old woman along, and so as she was asleep—”
“But if she wakes and finds me gone—?” Fleurette rejoined, and turned to go back to the inn. “I must just tell her—”
Immediately he seized hold of her hand.
“Your father,” he said, “told me to bring you along as quickly as I could. You know how impatient he is. It is but a step to the Hôtel de Ville. We’ll be there and back before the old woman wakes.”
No one knew better than Fleurette how impatient Bibi could be. If he said anything, it had to be done at once. At once. So, without further protest, she followed the kind soldier down the narrow street. A few minutes later she was back in the Hôtel de Ville, outside the door which bore the legend: “Committee of Public Safety, Section III.” The same soldier in the shabby uniform was lounging, bayonet in hand, outside the door, but at sight of Lieutenant Godet he stood up at attention and made no attempt this time to bar the way. Godet pushed the door open and at a sign from him Fleurette stepped into the room. Of course she had expected to see Bibi sitting as before behind the table, alone, busy writing.
Bibi certainly was there, she saw that at a glance, also that at sight of her he jumped to his feet with an expression on his face, far, far more terrible than when she had told him that it was she who had stolen Madame’s valuables. But Bibi was not alone. To right and left of him two men were sitting dressed very much like he was himself and wearing the same kind of tricolour sash round their waist. There was a moment of tense silence while Fleurette, a little scared, but not really frightened, stepped further into the room. She could not take her eyes off Bibi, whose dear face had become the colour of lead. He raised his hand and passed it across his forehead. He seemed as if he wanted to speak, yet could not articulate a sound. After a second or two he looked down first at the man on his right, and then at the one on his left, then back again at her, and over her head at Lieutenant Godet.
It was Fleurette who first broke the silence.
“What is it, father?” she said. “You sent for me?”
She did not call him Bibi just then; he seemed so very, very unlike Bibi.
But all he said was:
“What—is the meaning of—of this?” and the words seemed to come through his lips with a terrible effort.
“It means, Citizen Chauvelin, that I am trying to do my duty, and redeeming my faults of negligence and incompetence, for which you passed such severe strictures on me yesterday.”
The voice was that of Lieutenant Godet. Fleurette could not see him because he stood immediately behind her, but she recognized the voice, even though it was no longer amiable and almost servile as it had been earlier in the day. It had, in fact, the same tone in it which Fleurette had so deeply resented that day upon the bridge when first she had told him that she was Citizen Armand’s daughter.
“You ordered me,” Godet went on deliberately, “to go into the highways and the byways, and you gave me full power to arrest any man, woman or child whom I suspected of connivance with the enemies of France. This I have done. I have cause to suspect this woman of such connivance, and in accordance with your instructions I have brought her before you on a charge of treason.”
Whereupon the man sitting on the right of Bibi nodded approvingly and said:
“If indeed you have cause to suspect this woman, citizen lieutenant, you did well to arrest her.”
And the man on Bibi’s left asked: “Who is this woman, citizen lieutenant?”
Then only did Bibi appear to find his voice, and it came through his lips just as if someone held him by the throat and were trying to choke him before he had time to speak.
“My daughter,” was all he said.
As a matter of fact Fleurette did not understand. That something terrible had occurred, she could see well enough, but for the moment the fact that she was in any way involved had not reached her inner consciousness. She did not realize that when Lieutenant Godet spoke of having arrested a woman, he was referring to her. Thinking that she was probably in the way amongst these serious and busy men, she asked timidly:
“Shall I go, father?” whereat the man on the left gave a short, dry laugh.
“Not just yet, citizeness,” he said, “we shall have to ask you one or two questions before we let you go.”
“Citizen Pochart,” Bibi now rejoined somewhat more steadily, “there is obviously some grave error here on the part of the citizen lieutenant and—”
“Grave error,” Pochart broke in with a sneer. “We have heard nothing in the way of witnesses or details of the accusation so far, so why should you think there is an error, Citizen Chauvelin?”
Fleurette could see the struggle on Bibi’s face; she could see the great drops of moisture on his forehead, the swollen veins upon his temples; she saw his hands clenched one against the other, and how he passed his tongue once or twice over his lips.
“The citizen lieutenant,” he said with a marvellous assumption of calm, “has shown too much zeal. My daughter is as good a patriot as I am myself—”
“How do you know that, Citizen Chauvelin?” the other man asked, the one on the left of Bibi.
“Because she has led a modest and a sheltered life, Citizen Danou,” Bibi replied firmly. “Knowing nothing of town life, nothing of intrigues or plots against the State.”
“It is impossible,” Pochart put in sententiously, “for any man to know what goes on in a woman’s head. The soundest patriot may have a traitor for a wife—or else a daughter.”
Bibi was obviously making a superhuman effort to control himself. No one knew better than Fleurette how violent could be his temper when he was thwarted, and here were those two men, not to mention Lieutenant Godet, taunting and contradicting him, and she could see the veins swelling upon his temples and his hands clenched until the knuckles shone like polished ivory under the skin.
“My daughter is not a traitor, Citizen Pochart,” he said loudly and firmly.
“Lieutenant Godet says she is,” Pochart retorted dryly.
“I challenge him to prove it.”
“You forget, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou put in suavely, “that it is not for the citizen lieutenant to prove this woman guilty; rather it is for her to prove her innocence.”
“The Law of the Suspect,” Pochart added, “has been framed expressly to meet such cases as these.”
The Law of the Suspect! Ye gods! He himself, Chauvelin, had in the National Assembly voted for its adoption.
“Are we not ordered instantly to arrest all persons who by their actions, their speaking, their writing or their connections have become suspect?” This from Danou who spoke slowly, unctuously, without a trace of spite or anger in his voice. And Pochart, more rough of tone, but equally conciliatory added:
“The Law tells us that if suspect of nothing else, a man, or a woman, or even a child, may be ‘suspect of being suspect.’ Is that not so, Citizen Chauvelin? Methinks you yourself had something to do with the framing of that law.”
“It was aimed at traitors—”
“No! No! at the suspect—”
“My daughter—”
“Ah ça, Citizen Chauvelin,” here interposed Pochart with an expressive oath, “are you by any chance on the side of traitors? What has the State to do with the fact that this woman is your daughter? A patriot has no relatives these days. He is a son of the State, a child of France, what? Her enemies are his enemies, his hatred of traitors should override every other sentiment.”
“A patriot has no sentiment,” Danou echoed suavely.
Chauvelin now looked like an animal at bay. Caught in a net turning round and round, wildly, impotently; seeking an egress and only succeeding in getting more and more firmly enmeshed. But he kept himself under control nevertheless. He felt the eyes of those three men probing his soul. Exulting over his misery. Hatred all around him. Cruelty. Godet openly hostile, vengeful, with a grievance for his own humiliation; ready to hit back, to demand humiliation for humiliation, and terror for terror. Revenge! My God! who but a fiend could dream of such revenge? And the other two: that fool Danou and that brute Pochart! No actual hostility about them. Only envy: a mad desire to save their own skins, to purchase notoriety, advancement at any price—even at the price of innocent blood.
And as a wild beast twirling and turning in the trap will pause from time to time and glare out into the open, which means all that its life has stood for until now, so did Chauvelin, with soul enmeshed in vengeance and envy, pause a moment in his mad struggle for freedom. He paused and with wildly dilated eyes gazed upon a swift, accusing vision of all the innocent blood he himself had helped to shed. Those clenched hands of his, on which his gaze for one instant rested, fascinated, how many times had they signed the decree which had deprived a father of his son, a wife of her husband, a lover of his mistress. And through the meshes that tightened round him now, Chauvelin gazing into space saw before his eyes the awful word “Retribution” written in letters of fire and blood.
And seeing the writing on the wall, he felt an immense rage against these men who dared to taunt him, who dared to hit at him, through the one vulnerable spot in his armour of callousness and of cruelty. How dared they stand up to him, these miserable creatures whose existence was of less account than that of a buzzing fly? And throwing back his head he gazed upon them all, one after the other, meeting their sneering glance with a bold challenge. How dared they defy him? Him, Chauvelin? The trusted friend of Robespierre, one of the makers of this glorious revolution; one of its most firm props? Now a representative of the National Convention on special mission? There stood the child, his daughter, his little Fleurette, silent, wide-eyed, obviously not fully aware of the terrible position in which she stood: and they dared to hit at her, to accuse her, without rhyme or reason, just in order to hit at him through her. It was Godet, of course, that vile, incompetent brute: savage and cruel like the fool he was: vengeful for the bad half-hour he had been made to spend in this very room. He must have heard something of what the child had said. At one moment her sweet voice had risen to shrill tones. Oh! what a senseless, mad confession! and he had seized upon it so that he might hit back: have his revenge. But he could prove nothing. It would be one man’s word against another, and he, Chauvelin, representative on special mission, with the ear of all the great men up in Paris, would see to it, that his word carried all the weight. He would deny everything, swear that Godet lied. His was the power, he was more influential, more unscrupulous than most.
If only the child held her tongue! She would if she was assured that her Amédé was in no danger. How thankful he, Chauvelin, was that he had told her the truth this morning. He couldn’t bear to look at her just at this moment, she looking so innocent, so unconscious of danger, but nevertheless he tried to convey to her with eyes and lips the warning to hold her tongue.
Chauvelin had been silent for quite a little while; the others thought that they had cowed him. In their hearts Pochart and Danou were not a little afraid of him. A representative on special mission had unlimited power and this Chauvelin was always a crouching beast, ready to snarl and to spring, and they knew well enough how influential he was. But here was a double chance to show their zeal, and to get even with the man whom they had always feared. As for Godet, he had obviously staked everything on this throw. His life was anyhow forfeit; Chauvelin’s threats yesterday had left him no loophole for hope. But here was revenge to his hand, and at worst a powerful lever wherewith to force his enemy’s hand.
Chauvelin’s mind had been so busily at work that for a while he lost consciousness of these men. After his rage against them he forgot their very presence. Nothing mattered—no one—except the child, and his own power to save her. Through that semi-consciousness he only heard vague words. Snatches of phrases that passed rapidly between those two men and Godet. “Proofs—” “Witnesses—” And then Danou’s voice soft and unctuous as usual:
“Of course the more solid your proofs—”
And Pochart’s rough and determined:
“Why should we not hear that witness now?”
Godet replied lightly: “I have her here. Perhaps it would be best.”
It seemed as if they were determined to ignore him, Chauvelin; to shut him out of their counsels. He was so silent, so self-absorbed; they thought that he was cowed, and dared not raise his voice in defence of his daughter. They were all alike these men—these masters of France as they liked to be called—overbearing, arrogant, always menacing, until you hit back, when all the starch would go out of them, and they would cringe, or else become surly and defiant like any aristo.
“Go and fetch your witness, citizen lieutenant,” Pochart said in the end.
Then Chauvelin woke, like a tiger out of his sleep.
“What?” he queried abruptly, “what is this?”
“A witness, citizen representative,” came in unctuous tones from Danou. “It will be more satisfactory in this case—the Law does not demand witnesses—suspicion is enough—but—”
“Out of deference to your position, citizen,” Pochart broke in with a short laugh. “Go and fetch your witness, Citizen Godet,” he added dryly.
Chauvelin brought his clenched fist down with a crash on the table.
“I’ll not allow you—” he began in thundering accents, and met Danou’s sneering, inquiring gaze.
“Allow what, citizen representative?” Pochart asked roughly.
“Refuse to hear witnesses? On what grounds?” Danou put in in smooth, velvety accents.
Godet said nothing. It was not for him to speak; but he met Chauvelin’s glance just then, and almost drained his cup of revenge to its dreg.
“No one,” now put in Pochart significantly, “has more respect for family ties than I have. But I am first of all a patriot, and then only a family man. I happen to be a single man, but if I were married and discovered my wife to be a traitor to the State, and an enemy of the people, I would with my own hand adjust the guillotine which would end such a worthless and miserable life.”
“Now you, Citizen Chauvelin,” Danou said, taking up his colleague’s point, “are doing your daughter no good by trying to shield her from punishment if she be guilty.”
“You would not dare—”
“Dare what, Citizen Chauvelin? Act up to the principles which you yourself have helped to promulgate in France? Indeed we dare! We dare strike at the enemies of the State whoever they may be. That woman,” he added, indicating Fleurette, “is suspect; the Law of the Suspect gives our Committee power to arrest her. If she be proved innocent she shall go free. If she be guilty, you, by defending her, cannot save her and do but condemn yourself.”
And that was true! No one knew it better than Chauvelin, who but a few weeks ago in Paris had helped Merlin and Douai to frame that abominable Law. The heavy hand of Retribution was indeed upon him. The voice of the innocent had cried out for Vengeance before the Lord, and Nemesis, hourglass in hand, had stalked him now at last. All that was left him at this moment, out of all that arrogance which had imposed his personality upon the masters of France, made them forget his failures and fear him even in the hour of humiliation, was just a shred of pride, which enabled him to hide his misery and his despair behind a mask of impassiveness. He even succeeded in hiding his hatred and contempt of these three curs who were yapping at his heels. And when Pochart for the third time reiterated his order to Godet to go and fetch his witness, Chauvelin made no further protest. He rose from the table and went round to where Fleurette was standing, silent, bewildered, with great tears, like those of a frightened child, running down her cheeks.
He held his hands tightly clenched behind his back, to prevent himself from seizing her in his arms and raining kisses upon her golden hair, letting those sneering men see how terribly he had been hit and how he suffered. Godet had gone out of the room to fetch the witness—what witness? and the other two were sitting at the table, whispering together. Chauvelin through compressed lips murmured in Fleurette’s ears:
“Try not to be frightened, little one! Don’t let them see you are frightened. They dare not do anything to you.”
“I am not frightened, chéri Bibi,” she replied, smiling at him through her tears.
“And you will hold your tongue, Fleurette,” he urged under his breath, “about what you told me this morning? Swear to me that you will.”
“If M’sieu’ Amédé is safe—”
“I swear to you on my soul, that we do not even know where he is.”
“In that case, Bibi chéri—”
Quick footsteps outside the door. A challenge from the man on guard. The opening of the door. Then Godet’s voice saying loudly:
“The witness, citizens.”
Chauvelin looked up and saw beside Godet a woman with a shawl wrapped round her head; she came forward boldly, then threw back her shawl. Chauvelin uttered a savage oath, whilst Fleurette gasped in amazement:
“Adèle!” she cried.