The Love of Monsieur

“At the sight of you, monsieur,” she continued, “there is little room for fear in my breast. No, even if you should strike me down here upon this foreign, friendless deck, I believe that I could raise no hand or voice in protest.”

“Madame!” he said.

“It is true. You are powerless to offend. Why, your threats are mere empty vaunts, monsieur! Even in this dusky light I can see it in your eyes. You are clean of evil intent as a babe unborn.”

Bras-de-Fer bowed his head.

“Oh, let me right the great wrong that has been done – ”

“It is impossible – ”

“When you learn – Listen, oh, listen, monsieur!” she cried, passionately, as he moved away. “When you learn that I have left London for you; that I have given up all I possessed that a great wrong might be righted, a great martyrdom ended, you will no longer refuse me.” The words came tumbling forth any way from her lips in the mad haste that he might hear before he was gone out of earshot.

And as he paused to listen, fearfully: “Yes, yes, monsieur, I have learned,” she cried again. “I know. It is yours – it is all yours.”

Bras-de-Fer turned his body towards her again, but as he faced her his head was still bowed in his shoulders and she could see no other sign of any emotion. The revelation that he had longed for, and feared because he longed for it so much, was made. The secret was out. However he planned and whatever guise of unfriendliness he took, the relations between himself and this woman were changed thenceforward. The struggle for the mastery was fierce as it was brief. And in that moment, no matter how changed his duty to himself and her, he resolved that she should have no sign of it. When he raised his head again to the lantern-light all trace of the storm that had passed over his spirit was gone.

“It is too late, madame,” he muttered. “Too late. I stand by the cast of the die.”

“You cannot know what you say, monsieur. If the estates do not go to you, they will go to no one. It is the end of the house of De Bresac. Your fortune, your titles, your honors – ”

“And my good name?” he asked, coldly. “Who will restore to me my good name? No. I shall not return to London, madame.”

“You must return,” she broke in, wildly. “It is a sacred duty. If not for yourself, for the blood that runs in our veins.”

The phrase sang sweet in his ears. But he gave no sign.

“Blood is thicker than water, but it seeks its level as surely. I have made my bed; I shall sleep no less soundly because it is a rough one.”

She struggled to contain the violence of her emotion. “No, no, it cannot be, it must not be. You will learn how I have striven for you. You cannot refuse. It would be cruel, inhuman, monstrous!”

“Mistress Clerke has much to learn of the inhumanities,” he said. And then, with cool composure, “What power availed to convince her, where Monsieur Mornay was so unfortunate?”

“You are cruel, cruel. What had you to expect of me? What had you done in London to merit my favor? Why should I have believed in one of whom I knew nothing – nothing but presumption and indignity? How should I have known?”

“Madame’s advisers – ”

“Do not speak of them,” she interrupted. “It is past. The proofs were brought me. That is all. Why need you know more?”

“Captain Ferrers?” he said, insinuatingly.

“Yes, he!” She drew herself to her full height, and he could not fail to mark the lofty look of scorn that curved her lips and brow. “All London learned of the story of your escape. My agents were told that the vessel upon which you had fled was in the American trade. And so I sought service where I might best reach you. Thank God, my quest has not been in vain!”

“Madame sought service?” he said, in a wonder which vied with his cold assumption of apathy.

“I sought service with the Señorita de Batteville, monsieur,” she continued, with a proud lift of the chin, “in the capacity of waiting-woman and duenna.”

The words fell with cruel import upon his ears. He could hardly believe that he had heard aright.

“You serve – ?” he stammered.

“Have I not said that every livre of my fortune – ”

“Yes. But, madame – to serve! – you! – ”

“Is it so strange? Would you have me take that which is not mine? No, monsieur, I am no thief.”

Bras-de-Fer had turned resolutely towards the bulwarks with a mind more turbulent even than the seething waters below him. In the turmoil of his emotions he knew not which way to turn, what to say or what to do. The plan that he had marked for himself was becoming every moment less and less distinct.

It was with an effort that he turned towards her, his resolution giving him an implacability he was far from feeling.

“Madame, your probity does you credit. Were your judgment as unerring as your honesty, I had not left London. As it is, I’ve no mind to return.”

“Monsieur,” she faltered – “monsieur – ”

“If you please, madame. I would have you below. ’Tis a rough crew, and I’ll not answer for them – ”

“But you will tell me – ”

“Madame, you’ve purged your conscience. There your duty ends. At Port Royal it shall be arranged that you are sent to Porto Bello. As for me, my will is made.”

“Ah, you are malignant,” she cried, with a flash of spirit, his cold, sinister eye sinking and piercing deep into her heart like cold steel. “You are not he whom I have sought. He was frank, generous, kind. A strange, bitter, monstrous creature has grown in his guise.” Her voice trembled and broke as she moved to the hatchway.

“May God help you,” she said, in a kind of sobbing whisper, “who have so little kindness and pity for others.” And in a moment she had faded, a slender, shrinking shade of sorrow, from his vision.

When she was gone he fell upon the bulwarks and buried his face in his hands.

“Ah, bon Dieu!” he murmured; “how could I do it! She who has been so kind – so kind.” The new delight that swept over him at the thought of all that this rare, sweet woman had done for him came over him in a delicious flush, which drove away the pallor of his distemper like the warm glow of the tropics upon the frozen north. The heavy burden of his melancholy was lifted. If he crept about with bowed head now, it was because of some failing of the spirit or some craven dishonor of his own. He and his were forever raised to high estate, and no careless proscription of his inconsequent Mistress Fate could cast him down again. The freedom of his soul from the blight which his birth had put upon it lent it wings to soar gladly into the wide empyrean of his imagination. And he gave himself up without stint to the new joy in their motion. Did he wish, he could go at once to London and take a place among the men of his kind, a place which no mere art could win for him.

To London! There was a time when that word was magic for him – when, in careless bravado, he was challenging his fortune to deny him what he wished. Now he wondered at the singular distaste which grew at the very thought of the life that had been. With such a fortune and such a name there were no favors or honors he could not buy. He would know how to win his way again. But his spirit was listless at the thought. With the joy at his freedom from the cloud of his birth his pleasure ended. The estates, his titles and honors, dwelt so little in his mind that he marveled again at his change of disposition. He could go to London. But at what cost! Summon the goddesses of his past as he might, their essenced wiles and specious blandishing, distance gave them no added charm. He could only see this pale, proud woman, with a rare and imperturbable honesty which showed how justly she had worn the honors she relinquished, in a pure nobility which brought a flush to his cheek, giving up without a qualm or faltering the life and habits, the high condition, to which she had been born and in which she had been so carefully nurtured. Could he go back to London to leave this woman a wanderer, a servant, whose only hope even for a bare existence lay in the bounty of a Spaniard? The thought grew upon him and oppressed him and drove all the joy from his heart. All this she had done for him —for him. He rolled the thought over and over in his mind, like a sweetmeat in the mouth, with a new taste of delicacy and delight at every turn. She had given it all for him– that he, the man she had affected so profoundly to despise, might be exalted. It was not a triumph, but a quiet joy, the joy that the sick feel at the touch of a ministering angel. It did not matter what the cause, whether she had made this sacrifice for the principle or whether she had made it for the individual. He was the cause of this great outflow of human kindness and self-sacrifice from the deep, warm well-springs of this wonderful woman’s heart, which he had so often sought to reach and sought in vain. The glimmer of a single tear which had trembled a moment upon her cheek in the lantern-light reached to the very quick of the unrevealed secret depths of his nature, where no plummet had ever before sounded. It had glistened a jewel more inestimable than all the wealth she had brought him. Could he leave this woman upon the world, at the mercy of every bitter occasion? He had chosen wisely. Red-handed boucanier he would remain. He would not undeceive her. The light in which she held him removed all chance of an understanding. He would set her safely ashore at Porto Bello; then, with the aid of Cornbury and the English government, so dispose his affairs that the fortune would revert to her in case of his death whether she willed it or no. Then he would set to sea and take the precaution to die as speedily and publicly as might be. So far as she was concerned that would be the end. He would see England no more. It was here that his talents found their readiest employment. Of all his fortune, he would take only the ship upon which he sailed, and under another name, which would serve his purposes as adequately as the one he now bore, he would continue as he had begun, with a wider license only, a free-trader, a picaroon, a pirato, if you will.

It was Jacquard who broke, without ceremony, upon his meditations.

“Monsieur le Capitaine,” he began, with an air of some brusqueness.

“Oh, Jacquard,” he replied, abstractedly, “are we well repaired?”

“Monsieur, it is not that. For some days I have wished to see you. There is a muttering in the forecastle. Yan Gratz – ”

“Ah! Well – ”

“Monsieur, there is nothing upon the surface; from outward view ’tis placid as a pond. But I know. I have ears upon all sides of my head. ’Tis Yan Gratz. You’ve set his value too low. Gratz will not forget the leopard spots upon him. Like the leopard, he will bite, and as stealthily he will crawl.”

“Pardieu, Jacquard, is it so?” Bras-de-Fer lifted his brows. “And what is the grievance now?”

Jacquard scratched his great nose in perplexity before he replied.

“It is the discipline,” he began, slowly – “the discipline which has wearied them; they have little rum to drink: two tins yesterday, one tin to-day, and, lastly – monsieur will pardon me – lastly, monsieur, this matter of the lady prisoner. Monsieur, they say – ”