Flower o' the lily: A romance of old Cambray

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

For the moment Gilles could not move. The mask on his face scorched his brow and cheeks as if it had been made of hot iron, and yet, though he longed to tear it off, his arm, from sheer exhaustion, refused him service. He longed to get out of that door, to find Jehan; but his limbs felt as if they were weighted with lead: his very brain was in a state of torpor.

V

Just then, through that semi-conscious state, he heard swift footsteps approaching down the main staircase, then across the hall. The serving-men, almost blind with terror, heard them too, crouched yet closer together in the gloom. They dragged themselves along the floor, nearer to Gilles, as if for protection. Experience had taught the poor wretches that, whatever else happened, they would be made to suffer for all that had occurred. True, they deserved all that they would get, for they too had played an ignoble part; but whatever else happened there would be floggings or worse for them. Their employers were too weak now to protect them even if they would. M. le Marquis, enraged at defeat, would perhaps be the first to give his men away. So they gathered round Gilles now—round the man whom they had helped almost to murder. They clung to him in their sheer, unreasoning cowardice—the instinct to get behind something that was still stalwart and strong. They crawled away into the shadow, out of sight of Monseigneur's serving-men if these should come, of the night-watchmen or of the Palace guard if they appeared upon the scene.

Thus Gilles, when he tried to move towards the door, could not do so because of that cringing mass of humanity that clung, terror-stricken, round his legs. He was too utterly weary to kick them all aside, so he remained quite still, listening to those approaching footsteps. One of these he could have sworn to—heavy, and with a slight dragging of the feet—which could only have belonged to Jehan. He tried to call to his faithful henchman, but his throat was so dry he could not utter a sound.

The footsteps were quite close now, and through the open doorway he could see that a new and flickering light threw every nook of the corridor into bold relief. A torch-bearer was coming along; other lighter footsteps followed, and anon it seemed as if a woman's satin skirts swept the marble floor with its melodious frou-frou.

Gilles now was in a trance-like state on the borders of unconsciousness, a state wherein the body's utter exhaustion seems to render the mental perceptions abnormally acute. He could only stand and gaze at the open doorway; but he knew that in a very few seconds she would appear. He knew that it was she who was coming: she and Jehan. Old Jehan had found her and brought her along, and now that he—Gilles—was weary and sick she would minister to him and tend him as she had done that night, long ago, in what still seemed to him so like a dream.

The next moment the second half of the folding door was flung open and a torch, held aloft by a serving-man, threw a flood of light into the room. Immediately afterwards, under the lintel of the door, Jacqueline appeared, just as Gilles had expected her to do, like a vision of the angel of peace, in her shimmering white satin gown, with the pearls round her neck and her crown of golden hair. She had no mask on, and even through the veil which seemed to hang before Gilles' eyes he could see that tantalizing little brown mole which gave such exquisite, roguish charm to her face and made of the angel vision a living, perfect piece of adorable womanhood.

Jacqueline de Broyart was not the sort of woman who would faint at sight of blood. Her country had suffered too much and too long for her to have remained ignorant and detached from all the horrors which perpetual warfare against tyranny and intolerance had sowed broadcast upon the land. She had ministered to the sick and tended, the wounded ever since her baby hands had been strong enough to apply a bandage. But at sight of this disordered room, of the ghastly faces of these men—ghastly above their blood-stained masks—of de Landas' weird, convulsive gesture, of Maarege's attitude of vacant imbecility, of all the litter of stained floor and soiled bits of finery, she recoiled with an involuntary cry of horror. The recoil, however, was only momentary; the next, she had come forward quickly, a cry of pity this time upon her lips. Her first thought was for de Landas—the friend, the playmate, the lover. She hurried to him, hardly looked on Gilles, who could not move or call, who tried not to stagger or to fall headlong at her feet.

Now Jacqueline had her arms round her lover, his head rested against her shoulder, soiling the white satin of her gown with ugly crimson stains. But that she did not heed. She could not conjecture what had happened! That stuttering, stammering creature, himself half dazed and bruised, had found his way to Monseigneur's living-room, had in incoherent language implored her to come. Monseigneur happened to be absent from the room at the moment, had gone to give orders to one of his servants. Jacqueline was alone, sitting by the hearth waiting for him when the creature came. She knew him for the henchman of the Prince de Froidmont, the man who had fought so valiantly to defend his master awhile ago in the banqueting hall. She could see that he was hurt and in grave distress and gathered from his confused stammer that something awful was happening somewhere in the Palace. She followed him without any hesitation, and now through that medley of hideous sights which confronted her in this room, the most vivid thing that struck her gaze was de Landas' convulsive gesture, pointing at Gilles.

Already, with a few quick words, she had despatched the torchbearer for assistance.