Traitor and True. John Bloundelle-Burton
Prince will speak with you," La Truaumont continued. "To-night he will show to you the absolute faith and belief he will put in your loyalty to him and his cause, which is yours and mine and that of all Normans. Emérance, to-night he will confide in you a great task; he will put himself, his life, his honour, the honour of his house in your hands; he will place in your hands the chance of sending him to that wheel, that gibbet I spoke of but now. Does a man trust any woman with his honour and his life unless he knows that they are so safe in her hands, that they are so bound up with her own life and honour, that she needs must guard them safely?"
"Briefly," the woman said, her eyes raised for a moment to those of La Truaumont, "he knows I love him. Alas! the shame that any man should know I have given him my love unasked and unrequited."
"How can he fail to know? Yes, he does know. But you, Emérance, do you not know something on your part of how love and, above all, fidelity, begets love in return?"
* * * * *
The three men, La Truaumont, Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury had gone, they having taken the precaution to separate and make their way by different routes towards the better part of the city. Van den Enden and De Beaurepaire were in another room concluding their last arrangements for communicating with each other when the former should have reached Brussels. And Emérance leant out of the window of the room in which the meeting had been held and inhaled such air as was to be obtained from the stuffy street that was little better than an alley.
Yet it was not only for the sake of inhaling the air of the warm summer night that she leant over the sill while idly toying with a flower that grew, or half-grew and half-withered away, in an imitation Nevers flowerpot, but also for the sake of gaining time to collect and, afterwards, arrange her thoughts.
For she knew that, if La Truaumont's words meant anything at all, to-night would be fateful to her. She knew that, ere the bell of Saint Eustache, which had but a moment or so ago struck ten, should strike another hour, De Beaurepaire would have confided to her some task which, while it raised her from the almost degraded position of a spy--from the hateful task of watching Norman gentlemen and noblemen in Paris to discover if there was any defection on their part from that which they were deeply sworn to assist in--would not only put his life in her hands, but also jeopardise her own.
Nevertheless--as still she trifled with the flower while meditating deeply--not one of these three things, her own advancement to a position of trust and importance, or the power over De Beaurepaire's life and honour which that position would put in her hands, or--and this was, or would have been with many women, the greatest of all--the deadly peril in which she herself must stand henceforth, weighed with her in comparison with a fourth. In comparison with the fact that, henceforth, no matter whether the Great Attempt succeeded or failed--as it would most probably do--she and De Beaurepaire must for ever be associated together. For, if it failed, there could be but one fate for them to share together: if it, by any chance, succeeded, some little part of the success must fall to her share.
That, that only, was all she desired while knowing well there could be nothing more. She had herself uttered the words to La Truaumont that told all. The man she loved was De Beaurepaire, and he was far, far above her; as high above her as the eagle soaring in the skies is above the field-mouse; while, if the success were achieved, he would be as much more above her as the sun in its mid-day splendour is above the eagle. But, still--still--she would have played her part, she would have helped him to that splendour he had attained, she could never afterwards be forgotten or put entirely aside.
"To some women's hearts," she whispered now, "a recollection, the shadow of a memory, is all that they may dare to crave, all they can hope for. Happy are some women to obtain so much as that. If I can help him to succeed it will be enough. It is not much, yet, for me, it must suffice."
Then, as thus she mused, she heard the door open behind her, she heard a step taken into the room and, next, the voice of De Beaurepaire say, "Madame, I am here to speak with you."
CHAPTER IV
When first Georges, Sieur de la Truaumont, of an ancient Norman family, late a captain of "La Garde de Monsieur" and formerly of the Regiment de Roncherolles, had broached to the Prince Chevalier de Beaurepaire the suggestion that he should place himself at the head of the Norman plot for deposing King Louis, he had also indicated to him a number of persons of whom he might make use.
Passing over the greatest, since they were all known to the Prince and were also resident in Normandy, he had described to his half-friend and half-employer more than one who would be useful in Paris, and, among them, was Emérance, who styled herself the Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville.
"Who and what is she?" De Beaurepaire had asked almost indifferently, while wondering how a woman who lived in a decayed, though once fashionable, quarter of Paris and was reported by La Truaumont to be in an almost penniless condition, could be of the slightest assistance to him.
"She is a woman well born, of ancient family, who has been badly treated by all with whom she has of late had to deal. She was accused and tried for a crime she never committed and--she was acquitted. But, with those of her breed, the trial was enough to place her outside the pale. Fortunately it was the King's own court--not a local Norman one--that tried her, and, out of that, grew her determination to assist in wrenching Normandy--nay, France--from his hands, of reinstating herself in the eyes of our beloved province by acting as one of its saviours."
"How?" De Beaurepaire asked, already almost wearied by this short account of the unhappy woman's life.
"By spying on those who, having given in their adhesion to the plot, might, perhaps, find more profit in betraying it than keeping faith with it. Therefore she came to Paris, and, while watching those who might become backsliders, learnt that you, whom she had seen before, were the accepted head of the movement. And she will serve you well. Never fear for that."
"Why serve me? At present her pay cannot be great. As yet the bulk of money we hope to get is not ours."
"Why! Why! Well! you have known enough of women, young as you still are. You know why she will serve you."
"Bah!" De Beaurepaire said, "she works for her pay, poor as it is."
"Does she?" replied La Truaumont quietly.
"Georges," De Beaurepaire continued, addressing the other by his Christian name as he often did in these days, "who is this woman? You know still more than you will tell."
"I know nothing more of her except that she is, like myself, from Normandy. And I know that, for this self-same reason, she will go hand in hand with us in the scheme we have set afloat when--well!--when Madame la Duchesse is safe in Italy and we are back in France."
"You know nothing more of her?"
"Nothing. Van den Enden brought her to me here and said she might be useful, being Norman. When she heard you were the head and front of our future undertaking, she said she would do all we might ask. She had, as I say, seen you before and--la! la!--admired you. But she was poor, she said, and she must live. As you now know, the Jew brought you and her together, and she was finally vowed heart and soul to us, to the cause--to you. De Beaurepaire, you can grapple her to that cause, to yourself; you can make her do aught you, or we, desire if you will but give her a kindly word, a----"
"I will think upon it," the Prince said, while telling himself that already he had thought enough.
"She will be worth it. Do that. Be generous to her and she will go hand in hand to the scaffold with you if you desire."
"Bon Dieu! there is no need for that. And the scaffold is not for a De Beaurepaire."
"The heavens forbid! Yet, when the time comes--it is at hand--we shall throw a great stake."
"And win!"
"So be it. I live in hopes."
After De Beaurepaire had seen Emérance again, after he had more carefully observed her soft features