Chapter VIII. A HOLE IN THE WALL
THE coach rolled and pitched along. The road through the forest was bad and the darkness of a moonless midnight engulfed it. The two dim driving lanterns danced and swayed across the inky landscape like fox-fires, Sancho used his whip mercilessly. At St.-Pierre early next morning two of the beasts were ready to die. A wheel was strained and had to be replaced. Don Luis was forced to pause while men, women, animals, and material, as he put it, "renewed themselves." He himself was blithe. He drove a flinty bargain with the keeper of the post relays for some heavier horses. He left his own, not without apprehension, and pressed on. He was sorry for the horses.
Don Luis could not know that Denis had severed all connections, that no one would be expecting his return. He supposed that after the death of a king's officer there would sooner or later be some hue and cry. For the purely legal offence of killing a man in a duel the marquis cared nothing. At worst he could get out of it. That Denis had first dashed wine in his face might prove fortunate in case . . . He ground his teeth at the thought of explaining away his honour. A Spaniard before a foreign tribunal! His honour required that the real cause of that duel should under no circumstances ever become known.
No, he preferred to let the innkeeper, or the cure, answer questions, should there be any to answer, and to dissever himself and all that was his utterly and forever from the man he had left lying in the courtyard of the inn. As for the child that was with Maria, he would somehow take care of that!
After his own child came, later, he would eventually take Maria to Spain. She should live and die secluded there. In Estremadura hidalgos did not inquire after the health or happiness of one's wife. All this might take several years. In the meantime she might see reason, reconcile herself. In the meantime he had both private and diplomatic affairs to settle before leaving Italy. He intended to arrive there ostensibly in the same condition as he had set out. He had already satisfied his honour, now he would have the use of her body. It would provide him with an heir and a means of pimishing her. He might even repeat it. As he thought about it he knew now that he preferred it that way. There was a certain zest. He looked across the aisle at her where she lay in the arms of Lucia. She did not move. So these were the two women who had thought to play the fool with him. A fine clever pair! There was a little surprise coming to Lucia, too. He drooped his lids and smiled. Sancho was heading due east into the Montagues du Forez.
If they looked for him at all it would be by the roads down the valley of the Allier or in the passes of the Cevennes. No one but a crazy man would take a great coach like this through the Montagnes du Forez. But at a little hamlet in the foothills they stopped and purchased mules from the charcoal burners. The smith spent the afternoon forging two heavy chains. At evening the long clouds draped themselves against the massif and crept down into the valley. The wolves howled. At dawn the coach started upward.
Sancho rejoiced as only a Spaniard can at finding himself on the back of a mule. The whip snapped damply in the morning mist. The coach advanced upward foot by foot. The torrent beside the road deepened into a dark gorge. Where a waterfall could be heard roaring below they hurled down the heavy luggage. The two footmen walked behind putting their shoulders to the spokes at especially bitter spots.
By noon the coach had disappeared from the plains below as if it had flown into the clouds. Indeed, for much of the time a grey mist actually wrapped it. Three weeks later it descended with chained wheels into the valley of the Rhone. Sancho licked his whiskers. He would be able to indulge in fresh fish and cream again. They galloped south along the post road, pausing only for relays, and trundled over the bridge into Avignon. Here the marquis was out of French territory in the enclave and had friends. One of the towers on the walls had for some ages past been used as a dwelling. An old washerwoman lived there. It tickled the marquis' fancy and suited his purpose. He sent Maria and Lucia to the turret room. In the evenings Lucia could walk on the ramparts. Sancho followed her. At night he slept by the stairs and watched.
The conscience of the Marquis da Vincitata was a curious blend of himself, particular circumstances, and the times. Had he been a simple-hearted or romantic person certain short cuts to an immediate oblivion for his recent and present difficulties might have been found available. They had, of course, occurred to him, but only that. He regarded such promptings as crude, open to possible embarrassments later on, and beneath him. In short, he was not a murderer by direct action. As far as a man could, he merely intended to shape events. It was here that his conscience came in.
Whether he was religious or only fundamentally superstitious might provide matter for argument. Probably he was a blend of both. At least he had been piously brought up. The words of the cure had therefore made an impression upon him which that good man would have been the last to credit. But as a matter of fact Don Luis already considered the "blood on his soul" as a burden. His code approved, but his religion disapproved. Thus he was able to balance one load exactly, but he would not add to the weight against him. Above all he was in both religion and ethics a child of his own class and the century in which he was born, that is, purely conventional. In his ideals of conduct any analysis of motive was lacking. Hence his actions were merely an application in unfailing practice of a technique acceptable to his equals in rank. In short, his conscience was a code of honour tempered by some fear of the supernatural. In this precarious balance hung the fate of the unborn child.
In fact the balance was so very delicate that the marquis had come to a temporary halt at Avignon merely to readjust the scales in which he had undertaken to weigh out his own justice. True, he had already given them every chance of tipping in the direction which he desired by throwing in the weight of the coach for good measures; by driving over as heartbreaking mountain roads as he could find. The results, however, had not been so satisfactory as he had hoped. At present it seemed as if Maria would lose her mind instead of the child. A demented wife was not in the scope of his plans. Hence, there was to be a sufficient interval of quiet.
The opportunity of torturing several wives and so of improving gradually upon the method, does not occur frequently to many men. Don Luis was neither a widower nor a Bluebeard, hence his method with his first wife was not above criticism. The numbing mental shock of having seen her lover done to death before her eyes was greater than the physical misery which the violent motion of the coach could confer. It was from mental shock that she had nearly succumbed, and it was here that her husband had miscalculated. The extreme physical exhaustion of the trip over the mountains in addition to what she had already suffered reduced her to a state of apathy in which for a time she could remember nothing at all.
This condition provided sufficient respite to allow Maria to survive. Left utterly alone, except for the constant and now tender ministrations of Lucia, she gradually regained a grasp on herself. Her memory returned, but with it came the strength to bear it. After some weeks went by she began to sit in a chair on the ramparts overlooking the placid landscape that sloped away from the walls of Avignon. The bravery of a great despair filled her, and she determined, as she sat feeling the babe stir within her, to match her own strength, her determination, and if need be her life, against the will that strove to possess her body and soul. Despite Don Luis, she would bring this child of her love into the world. Its future she must place in the hands of God. She could do no more. The statue of the Virgin came forth from the black bag again. Placing it in a little hole in the battlements where the coping had dropped away and made room for a flowering plant with long green leaves, she sat facing it, praying quietly through the long afternoons.