Lord Tony's Wife (18 page)

There was silence for a time: Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were waiting for the dictator’s word. He sat at his desk with the scanty light, which filtrated between the curtains, immediately behind him, his ungainly form with the high shoulders and mop-like, shaggy hair half swallowed up by the surrounding gloom. He was deliberately keeping the other two men waiting and busied himself with turning over desultorily the papers and writing tools upon his desk, in the intervals of picking at his teeth and muttering to himself all the time as was his wont. Young Lalouλt had resumed his post beside the curtained window and he was giving sundry signs of his growing impatience.

At last Carrier spoke:

‘And now, citizen Martin-Roget,’ he said in tones of that lofty condescension which he loved to affect, ‘I am prepared to hear what you have to tell me with regard to the cattle which you brought into our city the other day. Where are the aristos now? and why have they not been handed over to commandant Fleury?’

‘The girl,’ replied Martin-Roget, who had much ado to keep his vehement temper in check, and who chose for the moment to ignore the second of Carrier’s peremptory queries, ‘the girl is in lodgings in the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie. The house is kept by my sister, whose lover was hanged four years ago by the ci-devant duc de Kernogan for trapping two pigeons. A dozen or so lads from our old village—men who worked with my father and others who were my friends—lodge in my sister’s house. They keep a watchful eye over the wench for the sake of the past, for my sake and for the sake of my sister Louise. The ci-devant Kernogan woman is well-guarded. I am satisfied as to that.’

‘And where is the ci-devant duc?’

‘In the house next door—a tavern at the sign of the Rat Mort—a place which is none too reputable, but the landlord—Lemoine–is a good patriot and he is keeping a close eye on the aristo for me.’

‘And now will you tell me, citizen,’ rejoined Carrier with that unctuous suavity which always veiled a threat, ‘will you tell me how it comes that you are keeping a couple of traitors alive all this while at the country’s expense?’

‘At mine,’ broke in Martin-Roget curtly.

‘At the country’s expense,’ reiterated the proconsul inflexibly. ‘Bread is scarce in Nantes. What traitors eat is stolen from good patriots. If you can afford to fill two mouths at your expense, I can supply you with some that have never done aught but proclaim their adherence to the Republic. You have had these two aristos inside the city nearly a week and–’

‘Only three days,’ interposed Martin-Roget, ‘and you must have patience with me, citizen Carrier. Remember I hae done well by you, by bringing such high game to your bag–’

‘Your high game will be no use to me,’ retorted the other with a harsh laugh, ‘if I am not to have the cooking of it. You have talked of disgrace for the rabble and of your own desire for vengeance over them, but–’

‘Wait, citizen,’ broke in Martin-Roget firmly, ‘let us understand one another. Before I embarked on this business you gave me your promise that no one—not even you—would interfere between me and my booty.’

‘And no one has done so hitherto to my knowledge, citizen,’ rejoined Carrier blandly. ‘The Kernogan rabble has been yours to do with what you like—er—so far,’ he added significantly. ‘I said that I would not interfere and I have not done so up to now, even though the pestilential crowd stinks in the nostrils of every good patriot in Nantes. But I don’t deny that it was a bargain that you should have a free hand with them…for a time, and Jean Baptiste Carrier has never yet gone back on a given word.’

Martin-Roget made no comment on this peroration. He shrugged his broad shoulders and suddenly fell to contemplating the distant landscape. He had turned his head away in order to hide the sneer which curled his lips at the recollection of that ‘bargain’ struck with the imperious proconsul. It was a matter of five thousand francs which had passed from one pocket to the other and had bound Carrier down to definite promise.

After a brief while Carrier resumed: ‘At the same time,’ he said, ‘my promise was conditional, remember. I want that cattle out of Nantes—I want the bread they eat—I want the room they occupy. I can’t allow you to play fast and loose with them indefinitely—a week is quite long enough—’

‘Three days,’ corrected Martin-Roget once more.

‘Well! three days or eight,’ rejoined the other roughly. ‘Too long in any case. I must be rid of them out of this city or I shall have all the spies of the Convention about mine ears. I am beset with spies, citizen Martin-Roget, yes, even I—Jean Baptiste Carrier—the most selfless, the most devoted patriot the Republic has ever known! Mine enemies up in Paris send spies to dog my footsteps, to watch mine every action. They are ready to pounce upon me at the slightest slip, to denounce me, to drag me to their bar—they have already whetted the knife of the guillotine which is to lay low the head of the finest patriot in France—’

‘Hold on! hold on, Jean Baptiste my friend,’ here broke in young Lalouλt with a sneer, ‘we don’t want protestations of your patriotism just now. It is nearly dinner time.’

Carrier had been carried away by his own eloquence. At Lalouλt’s mocking words he pulled himself together: murmured: ‘You young viper!’ in tones of tigerish affection, and then turned back to Martin-Roget and resumed more calmly:

‘They’ll be saying that I harbour aristos in Nantes if I keep that Kernogan rabble here any longer. So I must be rid of them, citizen Martin-Roget…say within the next four-and-twenty hours…’ He paused for a moment or two, then added drily: ‘That is my last word, and you must see to it. What is it you do want to do with them enfin?’

‘I want their death,’ replied Martin-Roget with a curse, and he brought his heavy fist crashing down upon the arm of his chair, ‘but not a martyr’s death, understand? I don’t want the pathetic figure of Yvonne Kernogan and her father to remain as a picture of patient resignation in the hearts and minds of every other aristo in the land. I don’t want it to excite pity or admiration. Death is nothing for such as they! they glory in it! they are proud to die. The guillotine is their final triumph! What I want for them is shame… degradation…a sensational trial that will cover them with dishonour…I want their name dragged in the mire—themselves an object of derision or of loathing. I want articles in the Moniteur giving account of the trial of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan and his daughter for something that is ignominious and base. I want shame and mud slung at them—noise and beating of drums to proclaim their dishonour. Noise! noise! that will reach every corner of the land, aye that will reach Coblentz and Germany and England. It is that which they would resent—the shame of it—the disgrace of their name!’

‘Tshaw!’ exclaimed Carrier. ‘Why don’t you marry the wench, citizen Martin-Roget? That would be disgrace enough for her, I’ll warrant,’ he added with a loud laugh, enchanted at his witticism.

‘I would to-morrow,’ replied the other, who chose to ignore the coarse insult, ‘if she would consent. That is why I have kept her at my sister’s house these three days.’

‘Bah! you have no need of a traitor’s consent. My consent is sufficient…I’ll give it if you like. The laws of the Republic permit, nay desire every good patriot to ally himself with an aristo, if he have a mind. And the Kernogan wench face to face with the guillotine—or worse—would surely prefer your embraces, citizen, what?’

A deep frown settled between Martin-Roget’s glowering eyes, and gave his face a sinister expression.

‘I wonder…’ he muttered between his teeth.

‘Then cease wondering, citizen,’ retorted Carrier cynically, ‘and try our Republican marriage on your Kernogans…thief linked aristo, cut-throat to a proud wench…and then the Loire! Shame? Dishonour? Fal lal I say! Death, swift and sure and unerring. Nothing better has yet been invented for traitors.’

Martin-Roget shrugged his shoulders.

‘You have never known,’ he said quietly, ‘what it is to hate.’

Carrier uttered an exclamation of impatience.

‘Bah!’ he said, ‘that is all talk and nonsense. Theories, what? Citizen Chauvelin is a living example of the futility of all that rubbish. He too has an enemy it seems whom he hates more thoroughly than any good patriot has ever hated the enemies of the Republic. And hath this deadly hatred availed him, forsooth? He too wanted the disgrace and dishonour of that confounded Englishman whom I would simply have tossed into the Loire long ago, without further process. What is the result? The Englishman is over in England, safe and sound, making long noses at citizen Chauvelin, who has much ado to keep his own head out of the guillotine.’

Martin-Roget once more was silent: a look of sullen obstinacy had settled upon his face.

‘You may be right, citizen Carrier,’ he muttered after awhile.

‘I am always right,’ broke in Carrier curtly.

‘Exactly…but I have your promise.’

‘And I’ll keep it, as I have said, for another four and twenty hours. Curse you for a mulish fool,’ added the proconsul with a snarl, ‘what in the d—l’s name do you want to do? You have talked a vast deal of rubbish but you have told me nothing to your plans. Have you any… that are worthy of my attention?’

V

Martin-Roget rose from his seat and began pacing up and down the narrow room. His nerves were obviously on edge. It was difficult for any man—let alone one of his temperament and half-tutored disposition—to remain calm and deferential in face of the overbearance of this brutal Jack-in-office. Martin-Roget—himself an upstart—loathed the offensive self-assertion of that uneducated and bestial parvenu, who had become all-powerful through the sole might of his savagery, and it cost him a mighty effort to keep a violent retort from escaping his lips—a retort which probably would have cose him his head.

Chauvelin, on the other hand, appeared perfectly unconcerned. He possessed the art of outward placidity to a masterly degree. Throughout all this while he had taken no part in the discussion. He sat silent and all but motionless, facing the darkened room in front of him, as if he had done nothing else in all his life but interview great dictators who chose to keep their sacred persons in the dark. Only from time to time did his slender fingers drum a tattoo on the arm of his chair.

Carrier had resumed his interesting occupation of picking his teeth: his long, thin legs were stretched out before him; from beneath his flaccid lids he shot swift glances upwards, whenever Martin-Roget in his restless pacing crossed and recrossed in frong of the open door. But anon, when the latter came to a halt under the lintel and with his foot almost across the threshold, young Lalouλt was upon him in an instant, barring the way to the inner sanctum.

‘Keep your distance, citizen,’ he said drily, ‘no one is allowed to enter here.’

Instinctively Martin-Roget had drawn back—suddenly awed despite himself by the air of mystery which hung over that darkened room, and by the dim silhouette of the sinister tyrant who at his approach had with equal suddenness cowered in his lair, drawing his limbs together and thrusting his head forward, low down over the desk, like a leopard crouching for a spring. But this spell of awe only lasted a few seconds, during which Martin-Roget’s unsteady gaze encountered the half-mocking, wholly supercilious glance of young Lalouλt.

The next, he had recovered his presence of mind. But this crowning act of audacious insolence broke the barrier of his self-restraint. An angry oath escaped him.

‘Are we,’ he exclaimed roughly, ‘back in the days of Capet, the tyrant, and of Versailles, that patriots and citizens are treated like menials and obtrusive slaves? Pardieu, citizen Carrier, let me tell you this…’

‘Pardieu, citizen Martin-Roget,’ retorted Carrier with a growl like that of a savage dog, ‘let me tell you that for less than two pins I’ll throw you into the next barge that will float with open portholes down the Loire. Get out of my presence, you swine, ere I call Fleury to throw you out.’

Martin-Roget at the insult and the threat had become as pale as the linen at his throat: a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead and he passed his hand two or three times across his brow like a man dazed with a sudden and violent blow. His nerves, already overstrained and very much on edge, gave way completely. He staggered and would have measured his length across the floor, but that his hand encountered the back of his chair and he just contrived to sink into it, sick and faint, horror-struck and pallid.

A low cackle—something like a laugh—broke from Chauvelin’s thin lips. As usual he had witnessed the scene quite unmoved.

‘My friend Martin-Roget forgot himself for the moment, citizen Carrier,’ he said suavely, ‘already he is ready to make amends.’

Jacques Lalouλt looked down for a moment with infinite scorn expressed in his fine eyes, on the presumptuous creature who had dared to defy the omnipotent representative of the People. Then he turned on his heel, but he did not go far this time: he remained standing close beside the door—the terrier guarding his master.

Carrier laughed loud and long. It was a hideous, strident laugh which had not a tone of merriment in it.

‘Wake up, friend Martin-Roget,’ he said harshly, ‘I bear no malice: I am a good dog when I am treated the right way. But if any one pulls my tail or treads on my paws, why! I snarl and growl of course. If the offense is repeated…I bite…remember that; and now let us resume our discourse, though I confess I am getting tired of your Kernogan rabble.’

While the great man spoke, Martin-Roget had succeeded in pullin himself together. His throat felt parched, his hands hot and moist: he was like a man who had been stumbling along a road in the dark and been suddenly pulled up on the edge of a yawning abyss into which he had all but fallen. With a few harsh words, with a monstrous insult Carrier had made him feel the gigantic power which could hurl any man from the heights of self-assurance and of ambition to the lowest depths of degradation: he had shown him the glint of steel upon the guillotine.

He had been hit as with a sledge-hammer—the blow hurt terribly, for it had knocked all his self-esteem into nothingness and pulverized his self-conceit. It had in one moment turned him into a humble and cringing sycophant.