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Alexandre Dumas
The wound is not dangerous. Alone with the waiting woman, Milady opens her eyes and plays weakness so well the poor woman sits up all night. The doctor, arriving at four, finds the cut already closed and trusts her pulse. She sends the woman away at breakfast and waits for Felton. He does not come. At dinner the soldiers' uniforms have changed. A guard says Felton left on horseback an hour earlier, and that the baron is still in the castle. The grating has a plank nailed over it. She reads the signs at once: Felton is mistrusted, the marines are gone, and she has one day left. When she is unwatched she paces like a tigress. If the knife were still in the room, she would think of killing the baron, not herself.
At six, Lord de Winter comes in armed at all points. He has become, she sees, an admirable jailer. He says she had begun to pervert Felton and that the young man will never see her again. Embarkation moves forward. By noon tomorrow he will have Buckingham's signature on her exile. If she speaks before the ship, a sergeant will blow her brains out; if she speaks aboard, the captain will have her thrown into the sea. He leaves her his farewell. She smiles with disdain and rages in her heart. A storm breaks at ten. Then a face shows at the barred window in a flash of lightning. Felton has come to file the bars. The boarded grating, he says, means God has made them senseless. He ties her wrists, hangs on a rope ladder that stops six feet short of the ground, and they freeze while a laughing patrol passes underneath.
She faints. He carries her through the rocks to a boat, then to a sloop hired with the last of his money and her bag of louis. On the water he says Lord de Winter, mistrusting him, sent him to Portsmouth to get Buckingham to sign the transportation order. The fleet sails tomorrow for La Rochelle. When she cries that the duke need not sail, Felton tells her to be satisfied: he will not sail. She reads the death of Buckingham in the young man's face and calls him as great as Judas Maccabeus. They agree she will wait until ten; if he does not return she will sail, and if he is free he will rejoin her at the Carmelite convent at Béthune.
The person who files your bars may already be carrying your next errand. On the hired sloop, Felton tells Milady that Lord de Winter sent him to Portsmouth for Buckingham's signature, and when she cries that the duke need not sail, he answers that he will not.
When you pull someone out of a locked room, name the next stop they are already writing onto your night before you call the work finished.
Felton kisses her hand as a brother going for a walk. His body looks calm; his eyes burn like fever. He keeps his face toward the sloop until the cliff hides the mast, then runs for Portsmouth, where drums are already beating and the troops are marching to the sea.
What this chapter proves — the pattern beneath the scene
In this chapter, the lesson is Honour vs. Necessity — A Trial Honour Will Not Name.
The card below names the pattern this chapter proves — carry it with you into Dumas's yard at Meung, the noon fight, the diamond road, the bastion breakfast, and the trial on the Lys.
Honour vs. Necessity
The cut is slight. She plays weakness until the waiting woman sits up all night. Felton comes. The honourable rescue is a boat. The necessary fact is that Buckingham will die because a jailer believed a brand was a gospel.
Key Insight
Escape dressed as salvation still has a destination. Ask where the boat is going before you call the open door a mercy.
Chapter 58
As Lord de Winter had thought, Milady’s wound was not dangerous. So soon as she was left alone with the woman whom the baron had summoned to her assistance she opened her eyes. It was, however, necessary to affect weakness and pain—not a very difficult task for so finished an actress as Milady. Thus the poor woman was completely the dupe of the prisoner, whom, notwithstanding her hints, she persisted in watching all night. But the presence of this woman did not prevent Milady from thinking. There was no longer a doubt that Felton was convinced; Felton was hers. If…
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Draw Felton's night as four boxes: the file at the window, the short ladder over the patrol, the sloop paid with her louis, and the road to Portsmouth. In each box write who is freed and who is aimed at. Then star the box where rescue turns into someone else's errand.
When did a rescue you offered pick up a second destination you had not agreed to at the door?
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Other theme-by-theme analyses from this book.
The Cassock He Asked For
Follow the Gascon who wants a cassock and is offered a commission.
The First Fight Was Not the One You Planned
Watch whom you stand beside when the first fight is not the one you planned.
Breakfast on a Bastion
Stay with the diamond run, the bastion, and the ride to Béthune.
Every Smile Hides a Warrant
Hear the court before you trust a smile or a warrant.
A Blank the Cardinal Already Signed
See what it costs to please a king and a cardinal at once.
Deep diving the literary elements.
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