The three musketeers
The bolts were drawn; the door groaned upon its hinges. Steps sounded
in the chamber, and drew near.
“Place that table there,” said a voice which the prisoner recognized as
that of Felton.
The order was executed.
“You will bring lights, and relieve the sentinel,” continued Felton.
And this double order which the young lieutenant gave to the same
individuals proved to Milady that her servants were the same men as her
guards; that is to say, soldiers.
Felton’s orders were, for the rest, executed with a silent rapidity
that gave a good idea of the way in which he maintained discipline.
At length Felton, who had not yet looked at Milady, turned toward her.
“Ah, ah!” said he, “she is asleep; that’s well. When she wakes she can
sup.” And he made some steps toward the door.
“But, my lieutenant,” said a soldier, less stoical than his chief, and
who had approached Milady, “this woman is not asleep.”
“What, not asleep!” said Felton; “what is she doing, then?”
“She has fainted. Her face is very pale, and I have listened in vain; I
do not hear her breathe.”
“You are right,” said Felton, after having looked at Milady from the
spot on which he stood without moving a step toward her. “Go and tell
Lord de Winter that his prisoner has fainted—for this event not having
been foreseen, I don’t know what to do.”
The soldier went out to obey the orders of his officer. Felton sat down
upon an armchair which happened to be near the door, and waited without
speaking a word, without making a gesture. Milady possessed that great
art, so much studied by women, of looking through her long eyelashes
without appearing to open the lids. She perceived Felton, who sat with
his back toward her. She continued to look at him for nearly ten
minutes, and in these ten minutes the immovable guardian never turned
round once.
She then thought that Lord de Winter would come, and by his presence
give fresh strength to her jailer. Her first trial was lost; she acted
like a woman who reckons up her resources. As a result she raised her
head, opened her eyes, and sighed deeply.
At this sigh Felton turned round.
“Ah, you are awake, madame,” he said; “then I have nothing more to do
here. If you want anything you can ring.”
“Oh, my God, my God! how I have suffered!” said Milady, in that
harmonious voice which, like that of the ancient enchantresses, charmed
all whom she wished to destroy.
And she assumed, upon sitting up in the armchair, a still more graceful
and abandoned position than when she reclined.
Felton arose.
“You will be served, thus, madame, three times a day,” said he. “In the
morning at nine o’clock, in the day at one o’clock, and in the evening
at eight. If that does not suit you, you can point out what other hours
you prefer, and in this respect your wishes will be complied with.”
“But am I to remain always alone in this vast and dismal chamber?”
asked Milady.
“A woman of the neighbourhood has been sent for, who will be tomorrow
at the castle, and will return as often as you desire her presence.”
“I thank you, sir,” replied the prisoner, humbly.
Felton made a slight bow, and directed his steps toward the door. At
the moment he was about to go out, Lord de Winter appeared in the
corridor, followed by the soldier who had been sent to inform him of
the swoon of Milady. He held a vial of salts in his hand.
“Well, what is it—what is going on here?” said he, in a jeering voice,
on seeing the prisoner sitting up and Felton about to go out. “Is this
corpse come to life already? Felton, my lad, did you not perceive that
you were taken for a novice, and that the first act was being performed
of a comedy of which we shall doubtless have the pleasure of following
out all the developments?”
“I thought so, my lord,” said Felton; “but as the prisoner is a woman,
after all, I wish to pay her the attention that every man of gentle
birth owes to a woman, if not on her account, at least on my own.”
Milady shuddered through her whole system. These words of Felton’s
passed like ice through her veins.
“So,” replied de Winter, laughing, “that beautiful hair so skillfully
disheveled, that white skin, and that languishing look, have not yet
seduced you, you heart of stone?”
“No, my Lord,” replied the impassive young man; “your Lordship may be
assured that it requires more than the tricks and coquetry of a woman
to corrupt me.”
“In that case, my brave lieutenant, let us leave Milady to find out
something else, and go to supper; but be easy! She has a fruitful
imagination, and the second act of the comedy will not delay its steps
after the first.”
And at these words Lord de Winter passed his arm through that of
Felton, and led him out, laughing.
“Oh, I will be a match for you!” murmured Milady, between her teeth;
“be assured of that, you poor spoiled monk, you poor converted soldier,
who has cut his uniform out of a monk’s frock!”
“By the way,” resumed de Winter, stopping at the threshold of the door,
“you must not, Milady, let this check take away your appetite. Taste
that fowl and those fish. On my honor, they are not poisoned. I have a
very good cook, and he is not to be my heir; I have full and perfect
confidence in him. Do as I do. Adieu, dear sister, till your next
swoon!”
This was all that Milady could endure. Her hands clutched her armchair;
she ground her teeth inwardly; her eyes followed the motion of the door
as it closed behind Lord de Winter and Felton, and the moment she was
alone a fresh fit of despair seized her. She cast her eyes upon the
table, saw the glittering of a knife, rushed toward it and clutched it;
but her disappointment was cruel. The blade was round, and of flexible
silver.
A burst of laughter resounded from the other side of the ill-closed
door, and the door reopened.
“Ha, ha!” cried Lord de Winter; “ha, ha! Don’t you see, my brave
Felton; don’t you see what I told you? That knife was for you, my lad;
she would have killed you. Observe, this is one of her peculiarities,
to get rid thus, after one fashion or another, of all the people who
bother her. If I had listened to you, the knife would have been pointed
and of steel. Then no more of Felton; she would have cut your throat,
and after that everybody else’s. See, John, see how well she knows how
to handle a knife.”
In fact, Milady still held the harmless weapon in her clenched hand;
but these last words, this supreme insult, relaxed her hands, her
strength, and even her will. The knife fell to the ground.
“You were right, my Lord,” said Felton, with a tone of profound disgust
which sounded to the very bottom of the heart of Milady, “you were
right, my Lord, and I was wrong.”
And both again left the room.
But this time Milady lent a more attentive ear than the first, and she
heard their steps die away in the distance of the corridor.
“I am lost,” murmured she; “I am lost! I am in the power of men upon
whom I can have no more influence than upon statues of bronze or
granite; they know me by heart, and are steeled against all my weapons.
It is, however, impossible that this should end as they have decreed!”
In fact, as this last reflection indicated—this instinctive return to
hope—sentiments of weakness or fear did not dwell long in her ardent
spirit. Milady sat down to table, ate from several dishes, drank a
little Spanish wine, and felt all her resolution return.
Before she went to bed she had pondered, analyzed, turned on all sides,
examined on all points, the words, the steps, the gestures, the signs,
and even the silence of her interlocutors; and of this profound,
skillful, and anxious study the result was that Felton, everything
considered, appeared the more vulnerable of her two persecutors.
One expression above all recurred to the mind of the prisoner: “If I
had listened to you,” Lord de Winter had said to Felton.
Felton, then, had spoken in her favor, since Lord de Winter had not
been willing to listen to him.
“Weak or strong,” repeated Milady, “that man has, then, a spark of pity
in his soul; of that spark I will make a flame that shall devour him.
As to the other, he knows me, he fears me, and knows what he has to
expect of me if ever I escape from his hands. It is useless, then, to
attempt anything with him. But Felton—that’s another thing. He is a
young, ingenuous, pure man who seems virtuous; him there are means of
destroying.”
And Milady went to bed and fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.
Anyone who had seen her sleeping might have said she was a young girl
dreaming of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow at the
next festival.
Chapter LIII.
CAPTIVITY: THE SECOND DAY
Milady dreamed that she at length had D’Artagnan in her power, that she
was present at his execution; and it was the sight of his odious blood,
flowing beneath the ax of the headsman, which spread that charming
smile upon her lips.
She slept as a prisoner sleeps, rocked by his first hope.
In the morning, when they entered her chamber she was still in bed.
Felton remained in the corridor. He brought with him the woman of whom
he had spoken the evening before, and who had just arrived; this woman
entered, and approaching Milady’s bed, offered her services.
Milady was habitually pale; her complexion might therefore deceive a
person who saw her for the first time.
“I am in a fever,” said she; “I have not slept a single instant during
all this long night. I suffer horribly. Are you likely to be more
humane to me than others were yesterday? All I ask is permission to
remain abed.”
“Would you like to have a physician called?” said the woman.
Felton listened to this dialogue without speaking a word.
Milady reflected that the more people she had around her the more she
would have to work upon, and Lord de Winter would redouble his watch.
Besides, the physician might declare the ailment feigned; and Milady,
after having lost the first trick, was not willing to lose the second.
“Go and fetch a physician?” said she. “What could be the good of that?
These gentlemen declared yesterday that my illness was a comedy; it
would be just the same today, no doubt—for since yesterday evening they
have had plenty of time to send for a doctor.”
“Then,” said Felton, who became impatient, “say yourself, madame, what
treatment you wish followed.”
“Eh, how can I tell? My God! I know that I suffer, that’s all. Give me
anything you like, it is of little consequence.”
“Go and fetch Lord de Winter,” said Felton, tired of these eternal
complaints.
“Oh, no, no!” cried Milady; “no, sir, do not call him, I conjure you. I
am well, I want nothing; do not call him.”
She gave so much vehemence, such magnetic eloquence to this
exclamation, that Felton in spite of himself advanced some steps into
the room.
“He has come!” thought Milady.
“Meanwhile, madame, if you really suffer,” said Felton, “a physician
shall be sent for; and if you deceive us—well, it will be the worse for
you. But at least we shall not have to reproach ourselves with
anything.”
Milady made no reply, but turning her beautiful head round upon her
pillow, she burst into tears, and uttered heartbreaking sobs.
Felton surveyed her for an instant with his usual impassiveness; then,
seeing that the crisis threatened to be prolonged, he went out. The
woman followed him, and Lord de Winter did not appear.
“I fancy I begin to see my way,” murmured Milady, with a savage joy,
burying herself under the clothes to conceal from anybody who might be
watching her this burst of inward satisfaction.
Two hours passed away.
“Now it is time that the malady should be over,” said she; “let me
rise, and obtain some success this very day. I have but ten days, and
this evening two of them will be gone.”