The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [273]
Confident of her sway over Felton, Milady had ample leisure to draw up her plan of campaign for the morrow. She had but two days left until the order for her deportation was submitted to Buckingham. Obviously Buckingham would sign the more readily, since the name on the document was a false one and he could not know it was Milady he was getting rid of. She would be put aboard immediately by Lord Winter. Ruefully she reflected that women sent to the colonies are less influential for purposes of seduction than your so-called virtuous lady, whose beauty is illumined by the brilliance of society, whose charm is lauded by the world of fashion, and whose allure is enhanced by a halo of aristocracy. Sentenced to a wretched and infamous punishment, a woman may still remain beautiful, but, beauty or no, she loses her power.
Like all persons of true genius, Milady knew how, where and when she could best utilize her advantages and profit thereby. Poverty was abhorrent to her, degradation would rob her of virtually all her greatness. Milady, one queen among many queens, required the joy of pride fulfilled in order to establish her domination. To give orders to inferiors was for her more humiliating than pleasurable.
She did not doubt a moment that she would return from exile. But how long would this exile last? Days unprofitable to private ambition were so many days lost to a person like Milady. What then of days not neutral and uneventful only but retrogressive and ruinous? To waste one year or two or three spelled an eternity to her. Was she to return to witness a triumphant D’Artagnan and his jubilant comrades receive the laurels he had so richly earned in the service of the Queen? The mere thought was odious. She raged inwardly. Had her bodily means matched her mental purpose, she would have wrenched asunder the bolts and bars of her prison with a mere fillip.
There was an even more painful rub. What of the Cardinal? What must that mistrustful, restless and suspicious soul be thinking of? His Eminence was not only her sole prop and support but the very instrument of her career and of her vengeance. She knew him of old and she knew him well. If she returned after a sleeveless errand, she could invoke the sorrows of her imprisonment and enlarge upon the sufferings she had undergone. His Eminence, caustic as usual, would shrug his shoulders with all the mockery of a skeptical and forceful genius, and say:
“You should not have allowed yourself to be trapped, Madame.”
Milady concentrated all her energies. There was only one man who could help her, Felton. Over and again she repeated his name as though breathing a prayer. Felton, Felton, the only dim light in her darkling inferno. Just as a snake coils and recoils to ascertain his strength ring by ring, so Milady, brooding, wrapped Felton about in the myriad toils of her fertile imagination.
Time passed. The hours, one by one, seemed to awaken the bells. Each stroke of the clapper resounded deep in Milady’s heart. At nine o’clock Lord Winter made his usual visit. He examined the window and bars, he sounded the flooring and the walls, he inspected the fireplace and the doors. During his lengthy and minute investigation no word passed between the lord of the manor and his captive. Both realized that it was idle to bandy words in order merely to vent their anger. As Lord Winter retired he bowed, and:
“Well, My Lady,” he assured his prisoner, “you will not escape tonight, I imagine.”
At ten o’clock Milady recognized Felton’s familiar footstep; she was now as familiar with it as is a mistress with every move made by the lover of her heart. Yet she hated and despised him for a weak fanatic.
But this was not the appointed hour; Felton walked past and she had to wait two hours more until, at twelve o’clock, the guard was changed. Impatiently she listened to the sentry march off and his relief