“Let me see him … only once. Let me tell him that I know now how I misjudged him. Let me tell him that I love him . that I have always loved him, but that I was too inexperienced, too bound by convention, to know it. Once … let me see him once.”
He would have said I should not be here. I should have gone off with Perigot while there was a chance. How could I? I could think of nothing but him. My own safety seemed of no importance. If they were going to kill him they could kill me with him.
In the distance I heard shouting. I was immediately at the window, looking out. There were lights among the trees . torches coming nearer to the chateau as I watched.
Now I could hear their voices. Did I imagine it or could I hear the word: Cousine. “
They were chanting something.
Footsteps outside my door. Light running footsteps.
Voices were whispering. It was the servants.
“They are coming for the cousin … now.”
I went back to the window. I heard it distinctly.
“A bos la cousine. A la lanterne.”
My throat was dry. So it had come, then. I was to be taken’ by the mob as he had been. This was the price I was to pay. I had allowed myself to be drawn into subterfuge. I had pretended to be Margot’s cousin for her sake and afterwards I had allowed the deception to be continued.
Now this very pretence could cost me my life.
I did not want to die. I wanted so much to live, to be with my love, to grow old with him. There was so much I had to learn about him, about life. I had so much to live for . if he could be with me.
The noise from below was horrific. I shut my eyes and it was as though those faces made hideous by greed, envy, hatred and malice were closing in on me.
The light from the torches illumined my room. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a wild-eyed woman whom I scarcely recognized as myself.
At any moment now . There was a hammering on my door. I went to it and leaned against it.
“Open … quickly.” It was Perigot.
I turned the key. He seized my arm and dragged me into the corridor.
He ran pulling me with him. We mounted a spiral staircase which went on and on.
We had reached the watch tower.
There he touched a panel and the wood slid back disclosing a cavity.
“Get in,” he said.
“You could be safe here. They will search the chateau but few know of this place. I will come back when they have gone.”
The panel shut on me. I was in complete darkness.
I beard them come into the watch tower. I heard their laughter and their ugly threats as to what they would do when they found me.
Again and again I heard the word “Cousine’ and my thoughts went back to the peaceful days of my life when my mother had been alive and it would have seemed impossible that I should ever become a victim of the French revolution. Cousin … That was when it had began. It was when I had agreed to come to France with Margot and pose as her cousin. If I had not done so … No, I told myself, even with danger and the prospect of violent death close to me, I would do it again. I regret nothing … except my doubts of the Comte.
“The Devil on Horseback.” I used it tenderly now.
My Devil. But I wanted nothing else from life but to be with him, and I would risk anything . even my life . for the time I had spent with him. He loved me and I loved him and I would give my life for that.
At any moment I was expecting the wall to open. They would find the secret sliding panel. Perhaps they would tear the walls down. I crouched, waiting in horror.
Then I realized that the noise had died away. Was I safe, then?
It seemed like hours that I waited there in the quiet darkness and then Perigot came.
He had brought rugs and candles.
“You will have to stay here for a while,” he said.
“The mob was murderous. They have ransacked the chateau and taken away some of the valuables. Thank God, they did not set it on fire. I have convinced them that you escaped when they took the Comte. Some of them have taken horses from the stables and gone off in pursuit. It will die down in a day or two. They have others with whom to occupy themselves.
You must stay here until I can take you away. As soon as it is possible I will take you to Grasseville. “
“Perigot,” I said, ‘it is the second time I have owed my life to you.”
“The Comte would never forgive me if I allowed you to come to any harm.”
“You talk of him as though …”
“Mademoiselle,” he said seriously, ‘the Comte was always one to extricate himself from trouble. He will do it again. “
“Oh Perigot, how is that possible?”
“Only God … and the Comte… will know. Mademoiselle. But it must be. It will be.”
And Perigot’s words did more to lighten the darkness of my hiding place than his candles could ever do.
I passed through that night somehow in my candlelit prison. I lay on my rugs and I thought of the Comte. Perigot was right. He would find some way out.
Perigot came early next morning. He brought food which I could not eat.
He said that he would have two horses ready in the stables. Thank God the mob had not taken them all. We must slip down after dark for he did not know whom he could trust. I must try to eat something and be ready when the moment came.
It was the following night when Perigot came again to the tower. I knew that he could not make many journeys to me during the day for fear of arousing suspicion.
“You are leaving immediately,” he whispered.
“Be careful.
Don’t speak. We have to get down to the stables undetected. “
I stepped out of my hiding place and stood in the watch tower.
Perigot shut the panel and turned to me.
“Now we must descend the spiral staircase. I shall go first. Follow me carefully.”
I nodded and was about to speak when he put his fingers to his lips.
Then he started down the staircase.
In the main part of the chateau we had to be especially careful for I understood that we could not know who in the household might betray me. Carefully he went while I folowed. It seemed a long journey but finally we were out of the castle and the cool night air seemed intoxicating after my prison in the hole behind the walls of the watch tower.
Then . my heart leaped in terror for as we entered the stables a man came towards us.
This is the end, I thought. Then I saw who it was.
“Joel!” I cried.
“Hush,” whispered Perigot.
“All is ready.”
“Come, Minella,” said Joel, and helped me into the saddle.
Perigot came close.
“Your English friend will take you to safety.
Mademoiselle,” he said.
“I have news of the Comte. They did not kill him.”
“Oh … Perigot! Is that true? You know …”
He nodded.
“They have taken him to Paris. He is in the Conciergerie.”
“Where they go … to await death.”
The Comte is not yet dead. Mademoiselle. “
Thank God. Thank you. Perigot, how can I ever . “Go quickly,” said Perigot.
“Keep in good heart.”
Joel said again: “Come, Minella.”
We came out of the stables, and then I was riding, side by side with Joel, away from the chateau.
Through the night we rode until Joel suggested that we give the horses a rest. It was not quite dawn when we came to a wood and we took the horses to a stream to drink. Then Joel tethered them and we leaned against a tree trunk and talked.
He told me how worried he had been when I disappeared and how relieved when a message came from the Comte to tell them that I was in Paris. Joel had gone to the house in Paris and learned where I was.