“Not even a pomander could I persuade him to take with him…!”
He went over to extinguish the candles and stood awhile painfully musing.
There came a knock at the outer door. Hardly trusting his deaf ears, he turned to listen—everything, anything, was an added terror these days of terror. The knock was repeated, faintly, then vehemently.
“’Tis not my lord—he hath the house key. Pray heaven this be no ill news!—Coming, coming!” he cried shrilly, as yet another summons rang.
Hardly had the door rolled back under his feeble hands when he found himself thrust on one side: a woman in low-cut dress, with dishevelled laces hanging in shreds at her shoulders, brushed past him and walked tottering into the room beyond, to sink upon the great chair.
Like an old watch-dog’s, Chitterley’s first thought was of his duty.
“Madam—madam!” he protested. “His lordship is not within—” Then, as she turned upon the querulous sound, and looked vacantly at him, he staggered back, “God ’a’ mercy; Madam Mantes!”
An ice-cold clutch seemed to be at his heart. Madame de Mantes it certainly was, the grand French lady of the Court, whom Lord Rockhurst had many a time entertained in days (alack, how far off they seemed!) when people laughed and made merry; and among the gay she had been the gayest, among the bright and beautiful the brightest and most fair. Chitterley could remember how, in this very room, in that very chair—which they called the King’s chair, for his Majesty always sat in it when he visited, as he loved to do, his neighbour, “my Merry Rockhurst,” for an hour of pleasant converse—she had sung fit to make his old heart young again.
Yet, in sooth, this was Madame de Mantes. Torn and haggard, through the strands of her uncurled hair, her glazed eyes looked at him from red and swollen lids, piteously, scarcely as if she could see. Except for a patch of rouge, her face was livid.
He thought of the figure he had seen crawling along the walls, and dread was upon him.