XIV.—THE PALACE OF TERROR.
With this key Lucille opened the window of the balcony softly. The descent from this would at another time have appeared to her a matter of peril, if not impossibility; nerved, however, by the stake and the emergency, it was nothing; she was upon the ground. The park door she found, as Blassemare had promised, open. She was now amidst the misty shadows of the solemn wood. She knew the path to the well by which the two chestnut-trees grew, and, with light and trembling steps, ran toward the trysting place. The moon had just begun to rise, and afforded a wan light, as she reached the appointed spot.
She stood beside the well, almost frightened at the success of her adventure. A figure emerged from a thicket close by. It was that of a man in a huge red cloak, and with a great cocked hat, like that of a gens-d'armes. Could this possibly be De Secqville? He whistled a shrill summons as he approached, and she heard the sound of steps hurrying to the spot. She was full of fear, apprehensive of treason and danger. The gentleman in the cocked hat was now close to her. He had long black hair, descending upon his shoulders, a pair of shaggy eyebrows, and a preposterous pair of black moustaches. She asked, in a faltering voice—
"Who are you, sir?"
"An officer, madame, of the police; and you are Madame Lucille Le Prun, nèe de Charrebourg, wife of Etienne Le Prun; and I arrest you in the King's name."
"Arrest me!—why?—upon what charge?—who is my accuser?"
"By my faith, madame, I know not. My duty is, simply to arrest you, in the name of his Majesty, and to convey you to Paris. It is nothing very bad, I fancy. Perhaps you have made monsieur a little jealous, or so; but you know best."
He spoke in a harsh, gruff voice, and his hand rested upon her arm, so as to render escape impossible, while he addressed her.
"By what authority do you arrest me?—by what order?"
"By virtue of this lettre-de-cachet; you see, madame, signed by the minister of police."
"I cannot read it; there is not light sufficient."
"Ma foi, madame, there is little sunshine at half-past eleven o'clock at night. I can't help that. Madame will please to come with us."
Two men by this time had appeared close at hand; and Madame Le Prun, who much preferred one of the King's prisons to that in which her husband was absolute, accompanied her captors with a far better grace than under other circumstances she would have done.
Distant a few score steps, upon a sort of grass-grown road, which traversed the park, stood the equipage which we have already described; and in a few seconds Lucille found herself seated beside the red cloak and mighty moustache, that held her in durance, jolting and rolling at a rapid pace along the moonlit scenery of the park.
"Where am I going?—to the Bastile?" asked Lucille, when a few minutes had a little recovered her from the stun and confusion of this adventure.
"Hum!—why, no, madame—not the Bastile; you are going to a convent."
"A convent!—how strange! What convent?"
"That of the Sisters of Love and Our Lady of the Sparkling Eyes—an ancient foundation of royalty in the city."
"I dare say; I never heard of it before;" and Lucille sank into profound silence.
After a considerable interval, she asked, with a tremulousness she in vain tried to conceal—
"There were some friends who were to have arranged my departure from the place where you arrested me to-night—did you see them?"
"Oh, yes; there was the atribilious Marquis de Secqville and the handsome Conte de Blassemare. St. Imay arrested them about half-an-hour ago; they are gone to the Bastile."
Lucille sighed profoundly. She did not observe that the farouche officer in the corner of the coach was shaking with suppressed laughter. After a time he ejaculated, in a sepulchral tone—
"I strongly suspect their punishment will be dreadful. It is bad enough to conspire to steal away the wife of a respectable curmudgeon, madame, but to draw one's sword on the king's police!—ma foi, madame, that is another affair. If his majesty's clemency be enlisted, notwithstanding, in their behoof, they may chance to get off with the galleys. It will be a dreadful sight to see that solemn De Secqville and that jovial Blassemare pulling one of those cursed long oars together, in red serge shirts, cursing Cupid and Monsieur Le Prun."
Lucille shrunk back into the obscurity of her corner. The officer could not discern how his brusque communication had affected her; but, after a short silence, he burst into an unrestrained peal of laughter. This unseasonable insolence incensed his prisoner. She felt, however, that she was at his mercy, and commanded herself; but she could not avoid saying—
"If the calamities of other people afford you entertainment, monsieur, I can congratulate you upon possessing an inexhaustible fund of amusement in the discharge of your odious and melancholy office."
"Amusement! entertainment!" he ejaculated, with another eclat of laughter, still more obstreperous. "I can't help laughing; but it is merely hysterical, on the faith of a gentleman. I laugh in proportion to my desolation. I could at this moment tear out my beard by handfuls through sheer despair. Par exemple, madame, par exemple!" And, with a frantic gesture and a roar of laughter, he literally tore off his huge moustache with both his hands, at a single pluck. "And my chevelure also, madame. See, here it goes—all for despair—hurra, hurra, hurrah! And my eyebrows—ay, they, too—pa ma foi—the eyebrows—there, presto—hurra, hurra!"
He shook and roared with laughter as he made these successive sacrifices, and, shifting his seat, so that the moonlight fell full upon him, cried, panting from exhaustion—
"Does not madame know me?—is it possible? Here I am—cloak, cocked hat, wig, all gone—in the proper costume of madame's fortunate and adoring deliverer."
So saying, Blassemare, for it was he, descended, as well as he could, upon one knee, and seizing Lucille's hand, pressed it to his lips.
"Monsieur Blassemare, you insult me, sir; you forget the conditions upon which I trusted myself to your care."
"Pardon me, there are no conditions. Madame will please to remember I would accept none."
At this moment the carriage stopped at the point where Gabriel was at that instant about to pass.
"Let me go, sir—I will descend. Open the door, I am free—I insist, I desire to leave the carriage."
"No, no—pray be tranquil—it is impossible."
"I will descend, monsieur."
"Madame, you shall not."
He spoke with a good-humored and emphatic impudence which implied the most perfect resolution. A vague terror took possession of her. She rushed to the window, and Blassemare, with a gentle force, drew her back.
It was at that moment she saw Gabriel, and shrieked to him for help.
The coach was again thundering at a gallop along the highway. Lucille sank back in the corner, and wept with mingled anger and despair. Blassemare was not a ruffian, so he said, "Madame, calm yourself, I wish to treat you with respect; your suspicions wound me as much as your ingratitude. I hope, however, that both will vanish on reflection. In the meantime, I cannot consent to so insane a measure as your leaving the carriage. Your return to the Chateau des Anges is not to be thought of; you dare not go back; and pardon me, madame, I will not permit you to leave this carriage except for a place of safety and temporary concealment."
Lucille's haughty and fiery temper could hardly brook this hoity-toity assumption of authority. There was, however, an obvious vein of reason in what he said; and she saw, besides, the futility of contending with one whose will was probably as strong as her own, and backed with power to make it effectual. She therefore maintained a moody silence, and Blassemarre, deeming it best to suffer her ill-humor to expend itself harmlessly, awaited better moments in congenial taciturnity.
Having got a relay of fresh horses upon the way, they continued their journey at the same furious pace, and at last they entered Paris. Passing through streets which hemmed her in, or opened in long vistas like the fantastic scenery of a dream, hurrying onward, she knew not whither, under swinging lamps, amidst silence and desertion, the carriage at last drove under a narrow archway into a sort of fore-court, over which a dark mass of building was looming, and through a second gateway in this, into an inclosed quadrangle, surrounded by the same black pile of buildings.
Here the carriage stopped, and one of the attendants, dismounting, rang a hall bell, whose deep sudden peal through empty vastness gave a character of profound desolation to the silence in which it was swallowed. More than once the summons was repeated, and at last a faint light gleamed upon the windows, and the door was timorously unbarred and opened. A hard-featured hag, in a faded suit of an obsolete fashion—the genius loci—received the party. She scrutinized Lucille with a protracted stare of audacious inquisitiveness, and when she had quite satisfied her curiosity, she led the way through several halls and lobbies up the great staircase, along a corridor, through a suite of rooms, upon another lobby up a second staircase, into a great dreary passage, through half a dozen waste and desolate chambers, and so at last into a room which had a few pieces of furniture at one end of it, and a log of wood smouldering and smoking on the hearth.
In truth it was a melancholy place, haunted by dismal reverberations and a deathlike atmosphere—everywhere mildewed, faded, and half rotten with decay. It was a place where crimes might be committed, unrecorded and unsuspected—where screams would lose themselves in vacancy, and desolation and solitude would swallow up the ghastly evidences of outrage. Here was the fitting scenery for tales of preternatural terror or fiendish crime. Lucille felt her heart sink within her as she entered this vast and awful labyrinth. But she felt that, be her destiny what it might, she had herself no power to mend it. What resource was left to her? Necessity retained her amidst the menacing solitudes of this half-ruined mansion.
Blassemare left her to the care of the old crone, who, to judge from appearances, was hardly an improvement upon the ungracious attendant she had left at the Chateau des Anges. This hag had evidently the worst possible opinion of her guest, and took no pains to affect a respect which she was far from feeling. She contented herself with offering Lucille some supper, and this declined, showed her the bedroom that was prepared for her—a room of the same depressing vastness, and offering, in its shabby and niggard furniture, a contrast to its majestic dimensions.
Such as it was, however, it was welcome. Lucille was exhausted with the anxieties and agitations of the day, as well as with her late and rapid journey. Having examined the room with a fearful scrutiny, she succeeded in bolting one of the doors, and placed the only chair the room contained against the other; so that she might, at least, be warned by the noise, in the event of any persons forcing an entrance. She lay down without taking off her clothes, and leaving the candle unextinguished.
For a long time the excitement of her strange situation, and the alarms that environed her, chased sleep away, worn and exhausted as she was. After a while, however, fatigue began to confuse her thoughts with interposing visions. The dreary chamber faded from her view; her heavy eyelids closed; fantastic scenes and images chased one another through her wearied brain, and slumber stole gradually upon her, overpowering spirit and body with a sweet torpor.
From this profound sleep Lucille was disturbed by a peremptory knocking at the door of the room, which she had bolted. This was accompanied by violent and reiterated attempts to force it open. At first, these sounds had mingled with her dreams; but the noise of a struggle, the suppressed tones of a man's voice, speaking rapidly and fiercely, followed by one thrilling maniacal scream, which hurried away through the remote passages, until it either subsided, or was lost in distance, called her up from her slumbers, trembling with terror.
Sleep was effectually dispelled, and, overcome with the horror of her situation, she wept, and prayed, and watched through the remainder of the night. In the morning she heard the old woman arranging the next room, and soon the voice of Blassemare. Emboldened by the daylight, and confident that Blassemare, however insulting his designs, would at all events protect her from actual violence, she opened the door, and entered the outer chamber, looking so pale, haggard, and fear-stricken, that the roué himself felt a momentary emotion of compassion.