Chapter XIV
It was some three hours after Pierre the fool had delivered Diane de Coray’s message that the brother and sister sat together in her chamber at the Château de Mereac.
“So thou hast succeeded?” inquired Guillaume, scanning with curiosity, not unmixed with admiration, his sister’s beautiful face.
“Beyond our expectations.”
There was a mocking intonation in her words which did not escape him.
“So,” he said, crossing his legs and leaning his elbow against the table, so that his eyes were bent nearly opposite to hers. “Beyond our expectations? That is well. And so the poor fool, Yvon de Mereac, loves you?”
“As warmly as his sister hates me.”
“Equally to their own destruction.”
She laughed a trifle uneasily.
“The idea causes you amusement?”
His tone was not pleasant.
“Amusement,” she said vaguely. Then, changing her tone, “Is it after all so necessary?”
“Altogether necessary. Remember your oath.”
She changed colour, but clung to her point.
“Nay, but seeing—seeing he loves me?”
“Scarcely with such devotion that he would give up his inheritance to the brother of his adored.”
She winced under the sneer.
“But will nothing else content you, mon frère? If I were his wife, I—I would arrange matters altogether to your will. You shall be lord in all but name. Consider, he is, after all, but a poor, weak fool, who will ever do my bidding.”
Her words were rapid, and rang with a note of pleading, but Guillaume de Coray only frowned.
“It is necessary that he shall be altogether removed, or, if plain speaking be necessary, he must die. The means are already in our hands.”
She shuddered involuntarily.
“Bah!” he said lightly. “Thou surely dost not love this weakling lover of thine, Diane? Grieve not for him, ma chère; the new Sieur de Mereac will wed thee to a nobler suitor when he comes to his own.”
“I cannot do it,” she moaned. “Nay, brother, I sicken at the very thought. ’Tis not in truth that I love him, but—but——”
“A foolish fancy,” quoth her brother mockingly. “Nay, Diane, thou art not wont to blanch so easily, and bethink thee of thy sweet revenge on yon proud and scornful maid.”
Her hazel eyes grew hard.
“Yes,” she said, “I hate her; yes, hate her with all my soul, for she scorns me, Guillaume, and flouts me too, for all her brother’s anger. Ay, revenge is sweet, and yet——”
“Courage,” mocked Guillaume, leaning closer to her across the table—“courage, little sister. After all——”
He paused, watching her eyes dilate with sudden dread as she filled in the unspoken words.
“No,” she cried at length, and her voice rose in a quick, decisive tone, “I cannot do it, Guillaume; sooner than be thy tool in this work I will—I will——”
“Die thyself belike,” he said coolly, his eyes never leaving her changing face. “Think well, Diane, yes, very well, before thou breakest thine oath—remember the fate that awaits thee, did I so much as breathe one word concerning thy dealings in matters which have brought many a fairer maid than thee to the stake, or the torture chamber. Did I proclaim thee witch, what arm, even of love itself, would be strong enough in Brittany, ay, and in all France, to save thee?”
“I am no witch,” she cried passionately, “as thou knowest well, liar and coward that thou art.”
“No witch,” he replied smoothly, “yet sufficiently akin to seal thy doom, were I to reveal thy secret dealings with one at whose name all Brittany shudders. And thou thyself hast been no mean pupil, my sister—therefore——”
The significant pause was sufficient, and the unfortunate girl covered her face in her hands as she moaned out—
“Nay, spare me the taunt, Guillaume. It is true I have sinned, and yet I am no witch, before Heaven I am no witch. Did I not flee from the beldame’s accursed dwelling in very terror from such deeds as they would have me do? Nay, brother, little I knew with what black terror I played, I, a motherless girl, led astray by one whom I had deemed a friend.”
“A fair friend,” he sneered, “truly a fair friend; but enough. That thou didst flee is known to me; that thou wert there shall be known, ay, and proved to the world if thou art obstinate, and thou shalt pay the penalty as surely as if thou wert as truly a servant of Satan as any hag who gathers nightly on the sands of Seville or around the nut tree of Benevento.”
Diane crossed herself, white to the lips, whilst her eyes crept to his face with the fear of a dog who looks up in very terror of the lash he knows he shall see descending.
“What is thy will?” she whispered mechanically, as she read no sign of relenting in the hard face before her.
He smiled triumphantly.
“Thou wilt obey?”
“I will obey.”
“That is well, but for the rest, thou knowest very well my will, and wherefore thou camest hither.”
She shuddered.
“Still,” continued her brother, “if thou wilt hear it again I will repeat our plan, our plan, thou mindest, Diane, which thou helpedst me to form so cleverly at Pontivy.”
“I had not known him then,” she cried with a little sob, “and—and he loves me well.”
“So much the better; the less chance of suspicion falling upon us. See, child, have done with these foolish vapourings, and mark how all falls in with our purpose. The Sieur de Mereac loves thee—a love which he will doubtless in time extend in some measure to me, thy brother, seeing that thou hast set his mind at rest concerning the affair at St Aubin. All then are at peace and filled with content, saving only Mademoiselle de Mereac, who, for some unknown reason, is consumed with hatred and jealousy against her brother’s beloved friends, a hatred which, indeed, also estranges her from her brother. Suddenly, without warning, the Sieur de Mereac falls ill, wasting away, in some strange and inexplicable sickness, till in due time it is apparent that death claims him for a comrade. A whisper is rumoured throughout the house coupling the name of Gwennola de Mereac with witchcraft; the whisper grows to an outcry; proofs of guilt are discovered in the maiden’s chamber; she is condemned to death, but it is too late to save her ill-fated brother, who perishes, a victim to an execrated sister’s malevolence, and Guillaume de Coray, his cousin, reigns in his stead over the broad lands of Mereac. Voilà, my sister, how charming and how simple a history! And the means, the means,” he emphasized, “of its fulfilment lie here.”
As he spoke he handed her a small phial containing a dark liquid, watching her, as the cat does the mouse, as she took it in her trembling hand.
“You comprehend?” he asked softly.
“I comprehend.”
He smiled pensively.
“That is very well, and in due course my delightful history will unfold itself. For the whisper of mademoiselle’s guilt it would be well to employ the services of the good Jeanne. She is discreet, that girl, and worthy of reward.”
But Diane did not answer; she was still staring in horror at the tiny phial she held in her hand—the phial that was the price of a life.
“A charming love potion, the dear Lefroi informed me,” said de Coray, spreading out his hands with an airy gesture. “Ah, what a man is that, and what a dwelling!—a very charnel-house; and yet not without its amusement. Thou mightest have done worse, my Diane, than stay to listen to thy fair friend’s discourse on the occult science, that night at Pontivy. But thou dost not agree? Bah! what foolishness!—’tis surely better to mix one’s own potions rather than trust to the discretion of another. But, as for Lefroi, he is no gossip, and, if one foresaw danger, a dagger thrust is a sure seal to unruly lips. And now, my sister, I will bid thee au revoir, seeing that I go to greet the beautiful demoiselle who did me the honour not long since to become my betrothed bride. Parbleu! it may well be that ere long she shall regret having scorned the hand which was once offered her in love and friendship.”
“Love and friendship!” echoed Diane drearily to herself, as with a bow her brother withdrew. “Thy love and friendship! Merciful heavens! methinks the love of such an one would but bring damnation in its train, and I——” A sob choked her whispered words.
“Ah, Yvon! poor Yvon!” she muttered softly, “and thou must die!” Then, shaking back her hair, which had partly fallen across her face, she drew herself up defiantly. “At least,” she said softly, as she faced her mirror, and noted the haggard countenance reflected therein—“at least I shall have revenge on yon proud girl. For her I have no pity—the scornful one!”
Meantime, so strange is human nature, Guillaume de Coray was standing looking out from his turret chamber towards the forest with a look so softened and tender that his sister would have failed to recognise the man who but a short hour before had planned murder in mocking tones. Now he was dreaming of the time when he should lead his Gabrielle forth from those forest shades, a proud and happy bride. In that dream of the future, when he saw himself at last at the summit of ambition, lord of the surrounding lands, husband of a woman already adored, it was strange that he saw himself also attaining to an honour and nobility which he could never possess. The husband of Gabrielle Laurent, he told himself, should close for ever the gates of the past which shrouded Guillaume de Coray, the blood-stained, unprincipled villain who, from serving an evil master, had afterwards served, more evilly still, his own lusts, trampling underfoot on his way any who opposed his progress to his goal, only mindful of his ends, caring no jot by what villainy they were accomplished. Yes, the gates should be shut on this man, and in the Sieur de Mereac should arise a new creature, upright, honourable, knightly, a phantom figure striving to be ever what the woman he loved had pictured him. Strange freak of complex human nature, seldom found so lost as to be beyond the pale of redemption; cruel and sin-hardened as this man was, there must needs have been a heart somewhere buried deeply within him, which afar off worshipped goodness and truth,—a heart which had been roused into life, amidst corruption, by a woman’s pure touch. She had believed in him, this simple peasant girl, with the face and mind of a holy Madonna, and the trust had awakened within him that long silent chord of chivalry and honour from which love itself had sprung. In her presence he was no longer the Guillaume de Coray whom the world knew, but one who strove to cloak that evil presence in a garb of honour and nobility. And in the deception itself lay the very germ of a new-born nobler self, a desire to lay aside for ever that hidden being of sin and become that which he read himself to be in her pure eyes. He shuddered as he pictured her realization of himself as he was, and swore that sooner than that this should be he would cast the old self aside. Yet,—mark the insidious whisper of Satan,—such dreams of goodness and virtue were garments to be donned after he had accomplished his purpose. Sin was the necessary tool he must employ to win for his white dove the fair nest he coveted; therefore sin should be his boon companion till the work was done, and he almost forgot to shudder at her uncomely countenance or shrink from the foul whispers of her counsel in his haste to use her far his will. Afterwards he would spurn her—yes, afterwards, when Gabrielle reigned at Mereac—afterwards—but not now.