“A pressing message from Lord Winter,” said he.
At the name of Lord Winter, who was known to be one of his Grace’s most intimate friends, the officer of the post gave orders to pass Felton, who, indeed, wore a naval officer’s uniform.
Felton darted into the palace.
At the moment he entered the vestibule another man was entering likewise, covered with dust and out of breath, leaving at the gate a post- horse, which, as soon as he had alighted from it, sank down exhausted.
Felton and he addressed Patrick, the duke’s confidential valet, at the same moment. Felton named Lord Winter. The stranger would give no name, and asserted that he could make himself known to the duke alone. Each insisted on being admitted before the other.
Patrick, who knew Lord Winter had official dealings and friendly relations with the duke, gave the preference to the one who came in his name. The other was forced to wait, and it was easy to see how he cursed the delay.
The valet led Felton through a large hall, in which were waiting the deputies from Rochelle, headed by the Prince de Soubise, and introduced him into a closet, where Buckingham, just out of the bath, was finishing his toilet, on which, as usual, he was bestowing extraordinary attention.
“Lieutenant Felton, from Lord Winter,” said Patrick.
“From Lord Winter!” repeated Buckingham. “Let him come in.”
Felton entered. He held the knife with which milady had stabbed herself open in his bosom. With one bound he was on the duke.
At that moment Patrick entered the room, crying,
“A letter from France, my lord!”
“From France!” cried Buckingham, forgetting everything on thinking from whom that letter came.
Felton took advantage of this moment, and plunged the knife into his side up to the handle.
“Ah, traitor!” cried Buckingham, “thou hast killed me!”
“Murder!” screamed Patrick.
Felton cast his eyes round for means of escape, and seeing the door free, he rushed into the next chamber, in which, as we said, the deputies from Rochelle were waiting, crossed it as quickly as possible, and sprang toward the staircase. But on the first step he met Lord Winter, who, seeing him pale, wild, livid, and stained with blood, both on his hands and face, seized him by the throat, crying,
“I knew it! I guessed it! A minute too late! Oh, unfortunate, unfortunate that I am!”Felton made no resistance. Lord Winter placed him in the hands of the guards, who led him, until they should receive fresh orders, to a little terrace looking out over the sea; and then he rushed into Buckingham’s room.
At the cry uttered by the duke and Patrick’s scream the man whom Felton had met in the antechamber darted into the closet.
He found the duke lying on a sofa, with his hand pressed convulsively over the wound.
“La Porte,” said the duke in a faint voice—“La Porte, do you come from her?”
“Yes, monseigneur,” replied Anne of Austria’s faithful cloakbearer, “but too late, perhaps.”
“Silence, La Porte; you may be overheard.—Patrick, let no one enter. —Oh, I shall not know what she says to me!—My God! I am dying!”
And the duke fainted.
The duke, however, was not dead. He recovered a little, opened his eyes, and hope revived in all hearts.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “leave me alone with Patrick and La Porte.— Ah, is that you, De Winter? You sent me a strange madman this morning. See what a condition he has brought me to!”
“Oh, my lord!” cried the baron, “I shall never console myself for it.”
“And you would be quite wrong, my dear De Winter,” said Buckingham, holding out his hand to him; “I do not know the man who deserves being regretted during the whole of another man’s life. But leave us, I pray you.”
The baron went out sobbing.
Only the wounded duke, La Porte, and Patrick remained in the closet. A surgeon had been sent for, but none could be found.
“You will live, my lord, you will live!” repeated Anne of Austria’s faithful servant, on his knees before the duke’s sofa.
“What did she write me?” said Buckingham feebly, streaming with blood and suppressing his frightful agony to speak of her he loved; “what did she write me? Read me her letter.”
“Oh, my lord!” said La Porte.
“Obey, La Porte. Do you not see I have no time to lose?”
La Porte broke the seal and placed the paper before the duke’s eyes; but Buckingham tried in vain to make out the writing.
“Read it!” said he—“read it! I cannot see. Read, then! for soon, perhaps, I shall not hear, and I shall die without knowing what she has written me.”
La Porte made no further objection, and read,
“Milord,—By what I have suffered by you and for you since I have known you, I conjure you, if you have any care for my repose, to interrupt those great armaments which you are preparing against France, to put an end to a war the ostensible cause of which is publicly said to be religion, and the hidden and real cause of which is privately whispered to be your love for me. This war may bring not only great catastrophes on England and France, but misfortunes on you, milord, for which I should never console myself.
“Be careful of your life, which is threatened, and which will be dear to me from the moment I am not obliged to see an enemy in you.—Your affectionate
“Anne.”
Buckingham collected all his remaining strength to listen to the reading of the letter. Then when it was ended, as if he had met with a bitter disappointment in it,
“Have you nothing else to say to me verbally, La Porte?” asked he.
“Yes, monseigneur. The queen charged me to bid you be on your guard, for she has been informed that your assassination would be attempted.”
“And is that all, is that all?” replied Buckingham impatiently.
“She likewise charged me to tell you that she still loved you.”
“Ah,” said Buckingham, “God be praised! My death, then, will not be to her as the death of a stranger.”
La Porte burst into tears.
“Patrick,” said the duke, “bring me the casket in which the diamond studs were kept.”
Patrick brought the object desired, which La Porte recognized as having belonged to the queen.
“Now the white satin sachet on which her monogram is embroidered in pearls.”
Patrick again obeyed.
“Here, La Porte,” said Buckingham, “these are the only remembrances I ever received from her—this silver casket and these two letters. You will restore them to her Majesty; and as a last memorial” —he looked round for some valuable object—“you will add to them—”
He still looked; but his eyes, darkened by death, saw only the knife which had fallen from Felton’s hand, still steaming with the red blood spread over its blade.
“And you will add to them this knife,” said the duke, pressing the hand of La Porte.
He had just strength enough to place the sachet at the bottom of the silver casket, and to let the knife fall into it, making a sign to La Porte that he was no longer able to speak. Then in a last convulsion, which he had no longer the power to resist, he slipped from the sofa to the floor.
Patrick uttered a loud cry.
Buckingham tried to smile a last time, but death checked his wish, which remained graven on his brow like a last kiss of love.
As soon as Lord Winter saw Buckingham was dead he ran to Felton, whom the soldiers were still guarding on the terrace of the palace.
“Miserable wretch!” said he to the young man, who since Buckingham’s death had regained the coolness and self-possession which was never again to abandon him—“miserable wretch! What hast thou done?”
“I have avenged myself!” said he.
“Avenged yourself!” said the baron. “Rather say that you have served as an instrument for that cursed woman. But I swear to you that this crime shall be her last.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” replied Felton quietly, “and I am ignorant of whom you are speaking, my lord. I killed the Duke of Buckingham because he twice refused your request to have me appointed captain. I punished him for his injustice, that is all.”
De Winter, stupefied, looked on while the soldiers bound Felton, and did not know what to think of such insensibility.
“Be punished alone, in the first place, miserable man!” said Lord Winter to Felton, “but I swear to you, by the memory of my brother whom I loved so much, that your accomplice is not saved.”
Felton hung down his head without pronouncing a syllable.
Lord Winter descended the stairs rapidly, and went to the port.
Chapter 51 - In France
During all this time nothing new happened in the camp at Rochelle. Only the king, who was much bored as usual, but perhaps a little more so in the camp than elsewhere, resolved to go incognito and spend the festival of St. Louis at St. Germain, and asked the cardinal to order him an escort of twenty musketeers only. The cardinal, who was sometimes affected by the king’s unrest, granted this leave of absence with great pleasure to his royal lieutenant, who promised to return about the 15th of September.
M. de Tréville, on being informed by his Eminence, packed his portmanteau, and as, without knowing the cause, he knew the great desire and even imperative need that his friends had of returning to Paris, he fixed on them, of course, to form part of the escort.
The four young men heard the news a quarter of an hour after M. de Tréville, for they were the first to whom he communicated it. Then D’Artagnan appreciated the favour the cardinal had conferred on him by transferring him at last to the musketeers, for had it not been for that circumstance, he would have been forced to remain in the camp while his companions left it.
His impatience to return toward Paris, of course, had for its cause the danger which Madame Bonacieux would run of meeting at the convent of Béthune with milady, her mortal enemy. Aramis, therefore, as we have said, had written immediately to Marie Michon, the seamstress at Tours, who had such fine acquaintances, to obtain from the queen permission for Madame Bonacieux to leave the convent, and to retire either into Lorraine or Belgium. They had not long to wait for an answer, and eight or ten days later Aramis received the following letter:
“My dear Cousin,—Here is my sister’s permission to withdraw our little servant from the convent of Béthune, the air of which you think does not agree with her. My sister sends you her permission with great pleasure, for she is very fond of the little girl, to whom she intends to be more serviceable hereafter.—I salute you,
“Marie Michon.”
In this letter was enclosed an order conceived in these terms:
“The superior of the convent of Béthune will place in the hands of the person who shall present this note to her the novice who entered the convent on my recommendation and under my patronage.
“At the Louvre, August 10th, 1628.
“Anne.”
Their joy was great. They sent their lackeys on in advance with the baggage, and set out on the morning of the 16th.
The cardinal accompanied his Majesty from Surgères to Mauze, and there the king and his minister took leave of each other with great demonstrations of friendship.
At length the escort passed through Paris on the 23rd, in the night. The king thanked M. de Tréville, and permitted him to give out furloughs of four days, on condition that not one of those so favoured should appear in any public place, under penalty of the Bastille.
The first four furloughs granted, as may be imagined, were to our friends. Moreover, Athos obtained of M. de Tréville six days instead of four, and got these six days lengthened by two nights more, for they set out on the 24th at five o’clock in the evening, and as a further kindness, M. de Tréville post-dated the furlough to the morning of the 25th.
On the evening of the 25th, as they were entering Arras, and as D’Artagnan was dismounting at the tavern of the Golden Harrow to drink a glass of wine, a horseman came out of the post-yard, where he had just had a relay, starting off at a gallop, with a fresh horse, on the road to Paris. At the moment he was passing through the gateway into the street the wind blew open the cloak in which he was wrapped, though it was August, and lifted his hat, which the traveller seized with his hand just as it left his head, and pulled it down quickly over his eyes.
D’Artagnan, who had his eyes fixed on this man, became very pale, and let his glass fall.
“What is the matter, sir?” asked Planchet.—“Oh, come, gentlemen, gentlemen! My master is ill!”
The three friends hastened to D’Artagnan, but instead of finding him ill, met him running for his horse. They stopped him at the door.
“Now, where the devil are you going in this way?” cried Athos.
“It is he!” cried D’Artagnan, pale with passion, and with the sweat on his brow; “it is he! Let me overtake him!”
“He—who?” asked Athos.
“He—my man!”
“What man?”
“That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I have always seen when threatened by some misfortune; he who accompanied the horrible woman when I met her for the first time; he whom I was seeking when I offended our friend Athos; he whom I saw on the very morning of the day Madame Bonacieux was carried off! I just saw him! It is he! I recognized him when his cloak blew open!”
“The devil!” said Athos musingly.
“To horse, gentlemen, to horse! Let us pursue him! We shall overtake him!”
“My dear friend,” said Aramis, “remember that he’s gone in an opposite direction to that in which we are going; that he has a fresh horse, and ours are fatigued; that consequently we shall disable our own horses without even the chance of overtaking him. Let the man go, D’Artagnan; let us save the woman.”
“Hello, sir!” cried an hostler, running out and looking after the unknown—“hello, sir! here is a paper which dropped out of your hat. Hello, sir! Hello!”
“Friend,” said D’Artagnan, “a half-pistole for that paper!”
“Faith, sir, with great pleasure! Here it is!”
The hostler, delighted with the good day’s work he had done, went into the yard again. D’Artagnan unfolded the paper.
“Well?” eagerly demanded all his three friends, surrounding him.
“Only one word!” said D’Artagnan.
“Yes,” said Aramis; “but that one word is the name of some town or village.”
“Armentiéres!” read Porthos—“Armentiéres! I don’t know it.”
“And that name of a town or village is written in her hand!” cried Athos.
“Come on! come on!” said D’Artagnan; “let us keep that paper carefully; perhaps I have not lost my last pistole. To horse, my friends, to horse!”
And the four friends galloped off on the road to Béthune.
Chapter 52 - The Carmelite Convent at Béthune
Great criminals carry with them a kind of predestination, causing them to surmount all obstacles, causing them to escape all dangers up to the moment which Providence, exhausted, has designated as the reef of their impious fortunes.
Thus it was with milady. She passed through the cruisers of both nations, and reached Boulogne without accident.
On landing at Portsmouth milady was an Englishwoman, driven from Rochelle by the persecutions of the French. On landing at Boulogne, after a two days’ passage, she claimed to be a Frenchwoman, whom the English persecuted at Portsmouth, out of their hatred for France.
