One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre

by G. P. R. James

Before the visit of the dwarf he had tried to sleep in vain; but now he felt the gnawing pain at his heart relieved by a new purpose; and, after the return of his guide with wine and meat, he ate and drank, though sparingly, and then, casting himself down once more, slept undisturbed till morning dawned.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Leaving the Count d'Aubin to pursue his schemes to their conclusion, we must now follow Bartholo home to the chateau of Guery. Few were the friends which the page possessed amongst the servants of his mistress; but in that number was the old warder at the gate, who, warned beforehand of the dwarfs absence, hastened to give him admittance without noise on his return. Bartholo stabled his horse and rubbed him down with his own small hands, and then, entering by a side-door, passed through the great hall, which was lighted by one of the large paper globes of the time--not at all unlike a Chinese lantern--and picking his steps through the midst of the straw mattresses upon which, as was then customary, several of the inferior servants were sleeping, he made his way towards a staircase leading to the room which had been appropriated to himself during the illness of the Count d'Aubin, and he had now resumed. Opening the door, he entered, congratulating himself upon not having been seen, when suddenly he was seized on either side, and held fast to prevent him from using his dagger, while some one at the farther end of the chamber drew a screen from before a concealed lamp, and Bartholo found himself in the hands of the major-domo and two stout grooms, who, with little compassion and less ceremony, proceeded to bind him tightly hand and foot.

The dwarf asked not a question, and said not a word; and the old maître d'hôtel, though loving him but little, refrained from any expression of triumph, merely directing the grooms to watch him well and not molest him, and then left him for the night. Early the next morning the cords were slackened upon his ankles, and he was brought into the presence of his mistress, whose quivering lip and flashing eye told how much her anger was roused against him.

"Bartholo, you have deceived me!" she said; "you have basely deceived me!"

"Those who suspect without cause," answered the dwarf, doggedly, "will always be deceived in the end, and will deserve it."

"And do you think me so weak a being," asked Beatrice, sternly, "as to believe that he who could practise the piece of knavery which you executed last night is innocent of foregone deceits? No, poor fool, no! and even were it not that--as is ever the case with favourites in disgrace--the whole household is pouring forth tales of thy former treason now that it no longer avails me to know it, I should still feel as certain of your guilt as I am of living and breathing, and should only daily look for the instances of your knavery. I seek not, man, to make you own either your former or your present baseness; all I seek to know is your motive. Tell me, were you bribed to divulge my secrets and thwart my plans? Were you hired to betray the mistress that trusted and befriended you?"

"No man does anything without the hope of recompense," replied the dwarf, "nor woman either."

"I should have thought," answered Beatrice, in a tone of bitter but sorrowful reproach, "that no recompense would have been sufficient to bribe you to sting the hand which cherished you when all the rest of the world either scorned or forgot you."

"You mistake me, noble lady," said the dwarf, "I see you mistake me. There are men and women both that sell their honour for gold; but I am not of them. There are still more, both men and women, that pawn their virtue for less solid payment, ay, and sell even their souls for vanity; but still no bauble was my bribe. It was neither title given by some profligate king, nor words of flattery spoken by some vicious lover. I had--I own it--a motive before my eyes, a recompense to look forward to; but I choose not to speak it before these gaping fools. Should I ever again have your ear alone, to it I may tell the cause of all that is strange in my behaviour--if aught be strange in the actions of man. But till then I am silent."