Guy Thorne - House of Torment

He said it perfectly politely, but with a little tiny, half-hidden sneer, which the woman was quick to notice.

"Ah! Monsieur," she said, "you are here on duty. Merci , that I know very well. Those for whom you have come will be down from above stairs very soon, and then you can go about your business. But you will take a glass of wine with me?"

"I shall be very glad, Madame," Johnnie answered, as he watched the fat, trembling hand, with all its winking jewels, pouring Vin de Burgogne into a glass. He raised it and bowed.

The old painted woman raised her glass also, and lifted it to her lips, tossing the wine down with a sudden smack of satisfaction.

Then, in that strange perfumed room, the two oddly assorted people looked at each other straightly for a moment.

Neither spoke.

At length Madame La Motte, of the great big house with the red door, heaved herself out of her arm-chair, and waddled round the table. She was short and fat; she put one hand upon the shoulder of the tall, clean young man in his riding suit and light armour.

" Mon ami ," she said thickly, "don't come here again."

Johnnie looked down at the hideous old creature, but with a singular feeling of pity and compassion.

"Madame," he said, "I don't propose to come again."

"Thou art limn and debonair, and a very pretty boy, but come not here, because in thy face I see other things for thee. Lads of the Court come to see me and my girls, proper lads too, but in their faces there is not what I discern in thy face. For them it matters nothing; for thee 'twould be a stain for all thy life. Thou knowest well whom I am, Monsieur, and canst guess well where I shall go – e'en though His Most Catholic Majesty be above stairs, and will get absolution for all he is pleased to do here. But you – thou wilt be a clean boy. Is it not so?"

The fat hand trembled upon the young man's arm, the hoarse, sodden voice was full of pleading.

" Ma mère ," Johnnie answered her in her own language, "have no fear for me. I thank you – but I did not understand…"

"Boy," she cried, "thou canst not understand. Many steps down hellwards have I gone, and in the pit there is knowledge. I knew good as thou knowest it. Evil now I know as, please God, thou wilt never know it. But, look you, from my very knowledge of evil, I am given a tongue with which to speak to thee. Keep virgin. Thou art virgin now; my hand upon thy sword-arm tells me that. Keep virgin until the day cometh and bringeth thy lady and thy destined love to thee."

There were tears in the young man's eyes as he looked down into the great pendulous painted face, from which now the evil seemed to be wiped away as a cloth wipes away a chalk mark upon a slate.

As the last ray of a setting sun sometimes touches to a fugitive glory – a last fugitive glory – some ugly, sordid building of a town, so here he saw something maternal and sweet upon the face of this old brothel-keeper, this woman who had amassed a huge fortune in ministering to the pride of life, the pomp, vanity, and lusts of Principalities and Powers.

He turned half round, and took the woman's left hand in his.

"My mother," he said, with an infinitely winning and yet very melancholy gaze, "my mother, I think, indeed, that love will never come to me. I am not made so. May the Mother of God shield me from that which is not love, but natheless seemeth to have love's visage when one is hot in wine or stirred to excitement. But thou, thou wert not ever…"

She broke in upon him quickly.

Her great red lips pouted out like a ripe plum. The protruding fishy eyes positively lit up with disdain of herself and of her life.

" Mon cher ," she said, " Holà! I was a young girl once in Lorraine. I had a brother – I will tell you little of that old time – but I have blood."

"Yes," she continued, throwing back her head, till the great rolls of flesh beneath her chin stretched into tightness, "yes, I have blood. There was a day when I was a child, when the poet Jean D'Aquis wrote of us —

… It was." Suddenly she left Johnnie standing in the middle of the room, and with extraordinary agility for her weight and years, glided round the little table, and sank once more into her seat.

The door at the other end of the room opened, and a tall girl, with a white face and thin, wicked mouth, and a glorious coronal of red hair came into the room.

"'Tis finished," she said, to the mistress of the house. "Sir John Shelton is far in drink. He – " she stopped suddenly, as she saw Johnnie, gave him a keen, questioning glance, and then looked once more towards the fat woman in the chair.

Madame nodded. "This is His Highness's gentleman," she said, "awaiting him. So it's finished?"

The girl nodded, beginning to survey Johnnie with a cruel, wicked scrutiny, which made him flush with mingled embarrassment and anger.

"His Highness is coming down, Mr. Esquire," she said, pushing out a little red tip of tongue from between her lips. "His Highness…"

The old woman in the chair suddenly leapt up. She ran at the tall, red-haired girl, caught her by the throat, and beat her about the face with her fat, jewelled hands, cursing her in strange French oaths, clutching at her hair, shaking her, swinging her about with a dreadful vulgar ferocity which turned John's blood cold.

As he stood there he caught a glimpse, never to be forgotten, of all that underlay this veneer of midnight luxury. He saw vile passions at work, he realised – for the first time truly and completely – in what a hideous place he was.

The tall girl, sobbing and bleeding in the face, disappeared behind the arras. The old woman turned to Johnnie. Her face was almost purple with exertion, her eyes blazed, her hawk-like nose seemed to twitch from side to side, she panted out an apology:

"She dared, Monsieur, she dared, one of my girls, one of my slaves! Hist!"

A loud voice was heard from above, feet trampled upon stairs, through the open door which led to the upper parts of the house of ill-fame came Sir John Shelton, a big, gross, athletic man, obviously far gone in wine.

He saw Johnnie. "Ah, Mr. Commendone," he said thickly. "Here we are, and here are you! God's teeth! I like well to see you. I myself am well gone in wine, though I will sit my horse, as thou wilt see."

He lurched up to Johnnie and whispered in the young man's ear, with hot, wine-tainted breath.

"He's coming down," he whispered. "It's your part to take charge of His Highness. He's – "

Sir John stood upright, swaying a little from the shoulders, as down the stairway, framed in the lintel of the door, came King Philip of Spain.

The King was dressed very much as Johnnie himself was dressed; his long, melancholy face was a little flushed – though not with wine. His eyes were bright, his thin lips moved and worked.

Directly he saw Commendone his face lit up with recognition. It seemed suddenly to change.

"Ah, you are here, Mr. Commendone," he said in Spanish. "I am glad to see you. We have had our amusements, and now we go upon serious business."

The alteration in the King's demeanour was instant. Temperate, as all Spaniards were and are, he was capable at a moment's notice of dismissing what had passed, and changing from bon viveur into a grave potentate in a flash.

He came up to Johnnie. "Now, Mr. Commendone," he said, in a quiet, decisive voice, "we will get to horse and go upon our business. The señor don here is gone in wine, but he will recover as we ride to Hadley. You are in charge. Let's begone from this house."